Cover illustration from Battle for Rokugan by Mathias Kollros.

This is a fan-made compilation of all publicly available Legend of the Five Rings Fiction. This document is not
intended for sale or monetary gain, and is intended to be freely shared with the L5R fan community. This is in no way
affiliated with nor condoned by Fantasy Flight Games. All included material is copyright the authors and Fantasy
Flight Games.

No permission has been granted for the reproduction or use of this text, other than free use as set out in the Fantasy
Flight Games IP Policy, which can be found here:
https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/fa/b1/fab15a15-94a6-404c-ab86-
6a3b0e77a7a0/ip_policy_031419_final_v21.pdf

Please contact the editor at bpompu@gmail.com with any concerns or questions about this collection.

The included fiction was all originally found in individual pdfs on the Fantasy Flight Games Legend of the Five Rings
Community Page, under the Lore Discussion Subforum, which has since been shit down.

The pdf conversions of the Clan Pack fictions were done by Maffster on the FFG Community Forum
(u/GrandMaffster on reddit).

The Stories and conflicts between the clans in Legend of the Five Rings are a key part of the lore surrounding the
game. All Legend of the Five Rings stories are works of fiction. The Characters, incidents, and dialogue were drawn
from the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living
or dead, is entirely coincidental.

© 2017–2021 Fantasy Flight Games. Legend of the Five Rings, the L5R Logo, The Battle for Rokugan box art, The
Map of Rokugan the Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, and Unicorn Clan mons, are copyright and
trademarks of Fantasy Flight Games.
www.FantasyFlightGames.com
In Rokugan, it is said that honor is stronger than steel. While even the finest blade can bend and
break or twist under the heat of the forge, the Emerald Empire’s society has been folded in the forges
of politics and war for more than a thousand years, and it has not yet broken. The society of Rokugan
follows a divinely ordered pattern set down by the eight Kami, who shared their celestial blessings
with the mortal realm. Rokugan is a land of strict social stratification, where an improper look at the
wrong time can mean death.

This is an era of sudden change and upheaval in Rokugan, however. Mortal schemes, natural
calamities, and celestial turmoil alike have disrupted the political, military, and spiritual equilibrium
of the land. Long-simmering rivalries and fresh betrayals ripple through the courts and on the
battlefield. The Chrysanthemum Throne is beset by threats from without and within, and the honor
of the seven Great Clans—the families descended from the heroes of legend and sworn to rule their
lands in the Emperor’s name—shall be put to the test.

ii
Well, this is certainly a project.

This document is an attempt to create a compendium of all Legend of the Five Rings short fiction
that has been published (excepting the introductions to the RPG sourcebooks, as these are not freely
available, nor do they seem to have a bearing on much of the story). The fictions are presented here
in roughly publication order, so some fictions occur after fictions which follow them in the text. For
a detailed breakdown of a chronological order to read the fictions in, please see Kakita Kaori’s
timeline linked below.
For completeness sake, I have included a reference to the novellas, and in the Table of Contents
these are listed in red. I have also included information about the interactive short story that FFG
released during the Covid-19 Pandemic. This is on the Table of Contents in blue. Links to these
products have been included, particularly to the product page of the novellas, as these are not freely
available. An “About the Authors” section has been added at the end of the document, with bios
sourced from various websites and wikis.
In the future, I intend to add a few more quality of life elements into the document (more of an
eBook now, I suppose), though largely these are because I’m crazy. These include:
❖ A page of terms in “Rokugani” or other in-universe languages (largely Japanese), and their
English translations.
❖ An index of important characters and where they appear. This could also take the form of a
Dramatis Personae instead of Index, in order of appearance. This would be largely based on
the Imperial Census thread on the FFG Lore Forum.

iv
 ❖ Possibly the inclusion of more of the timeline, such as the timeline before the events of the
main storyline. This one is troubling, as It has appeared in print, but mostly in published
FFG sourcebooks, and I’m unsure how that will gel with FFG’s IP Policy.
This project would not have been possible without the great threads on the Fantasy Flight Games
forum, particularly those in the L5R Living Card Game Lore subforum. Unfortunately access to
these threads has been lost following FFG’s decision to close their forums on February 1, 2021.
Some of these can now be found at “The Winter Garden of the Kakita” website.
❖ All Fiction in Chronological Reading Order by Kakita Kaori, which is an updated version of
the thread by Maffster. This is what gave me the original idea to put these in chronological
order, and also to collect them all together for my own use. This is also where I sourced all
of the PDF versions of the original clan-pack fictions.
❖ Timeline for the Fictions so Far by Kakita Kaori. This is the main timeline that I have been
using to place the fictions. I have tried to place the fiction to match the last entry that the
fiction occupies in the timeline, meaning that some stories start well before the story that
precedes it. There are a few notable places where I have differed from Kakita Kaori’s
placements, but this mostly came down to rearranging a few fictions that happened roughly
at the “same time” to facilitate narrative flow (such as introducing Doji Hotaru before the
Dragon Clan army or the fight on the wall). Others are places where my personal placement
seemed to fit better with how I imagined “My Rokugan” looking. Direct link here.
❖ The Imperial Census and Main and Secondary Characters by Tonbo Karasu. This provides
a really good look at who the majors movers are in the storyline. Direct link here.
❖ And finally, the Fiction Library by Matsu. This served as a repository of the fictions in order
of publication.
Finally, I just wanted to thank the community at the FFG forums, the subreddits r/l5r and r/rokugan,
and the L5R Discord, who provided good emotional support, and encouraged me to keep working
on this.

v
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... ii
Map of Rokugan ............................................................................................................................... iii
Editor’s Note .................................................................................................................................... iv
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................. vi
Timeline of Rokugan ........................................................................................................................ xi

The First Scroll: Core Set Fiction

Her Father’s Daughter ....................................................................................................................... 2
The Price of War ............................................................................................................................. 13
The Rising Wave ............................................................................................................................. 23
Dark Hands of Heaven .................................................................................................................... 35
Risen from the Flames ..................................................................................................................... 47
Curved Blades ................................................................................................................................. 59
Smokeless Fire................................................................................................................................. 69
The World, A Stage ......................................................................................................................... 78
An Empire in Turmoil… A Season of War .................................................................................... 88
A Most Suitable Teacher ................................................................................................................. 93

The Second Scroll: The Imperial Cycle

In the Garden of Lies ....................................................................................................................... 97
To the South .................................................................................................................................. 104

vi
The Fate of Flames ........................................................................................................................ 113
Better to Be Certain ....................................................................................................................... 120
The Fires of Justice ........................................................................................................................ 126
The Stories We Tell ....................................................................................................................... 129
Blind Ambition .............................................................................................................................. 136
Service and Sacrifice ..................................................................................................................... 144
A Difference of Lanterns ............................................................................................................... 152
Beneath, Below, Beyond ............................................................................................................... 160
Family Duty ................................................................................................................................... 169
Flying Chariot, Standing ............................................................................................................... 178
Court Games .................................................................................................................................. 185
Honor, Loyalty, Duty .................................................................................................................... 193
The Bright Flame of the World’s Glory ........................................................................................ 199
Wildcats and Dragon Teeth ........................................................................................................... 207
Fireflies .......................................................................................................................................... 213
The Specters of War ...................................................................................................................... 221
Repentance Does Not Come First ................................................................................................. 231
The Sword and the Spirits ............................................................................................................. 246
Tempests and Tides ....................................................................................................................... 247

The Third Scroll: The Elemental Cycle

A Crane Takes Flight..................................................................................................................... 256
Gaze into Darkness ........................................................................................................................ 266
Kurosunai Village .......................................................................................................................... 275
Awakened ...................................................................................................................................... 289
Dreams of Shadow ........................................................................................................................ 297
Outsiders ........................................................................................................................................ 305
Heart of the Garden ....................................................................................................................... 317
Snow and Sun ................................................................................................................................ 327
Between the Lines ......................................................................................................................... 335
A Swift End ................................................................................................................................... 343
Whispers of Shadow and Steel ...................................................................................................... 350

vii
Tiger Stalks His Prey ..................................................................................................................... 351
A Simple Test ................................................................................................................................ 363
Toshi Ranbo Clan Letters .............................................................................................................. 374
Small Mercies ................................................................................................................................ 385
Imperial Gifts................................................................................................................................. 390
Across the Burning Sands ............................................................................................................. 401
Children of The Empire ................................................................................................................. 402
Like Seeds on the Wind ................................................................................................................. 426
Rule from Horseback ..................................................................................................................... 434

The Fourth Scroll: The Inheritance Cycle

The Last Stone Played ................................................................................................................... 443
Tactical Maneuvers ....................................................................................................................... 457
Kunshu Clan Letters, Part I ........................................................................................................... 465
Falling Stars ................................................................................................................................... 474
By the Stroke of a Brush ............................................................................................................... 485
Red Petals Scatter .......................................................................................................................... 496
Two Swords Fall from Heaven...................................................................................................... 509
Kunshu Clan Letters, Part II .......................................................................................................... 520
Black and White ............................................................................................................................ 522
Behind the Empty Throne ............................................................................................................. 534
Roar of the Lioness ........................................................................................................................ 543
Wind Through Falling Leaves ....................................................................................................... 553
The Price of Failure ....................................................................................................................... 561
Trust Me ........................................................................................................................................ 570
The Eternal Knot ........................................................................................................................... 577
A Game of Promises ...................................................................................................................... 578
The Cornered Lion ........................................................................................................................ 586
A Bloody Harvest .......................................................................................................................... 594
Pine and Cherry Blossoms............................................................................................................. 603

The Fifth Scroll: The Dominion Cycle

We Strike First ............................................................................................................................... 612

viii
Beyond Reach ................................................................................................................................ 621
What the Eye Cannot See .............................................................................................................. 632
A Night Storm Rages..................................................................................................................... 639
Cold Autumn Harvests .................................................................................................................. 648
Hidden Markings ........................................................................................................................... 658
The Art of Matchmaking ............................................................................................................... 669
How the World Ought to Work ..................................................................................................... 677
Caged Birds ................................................................................................................................... 688
Violence Behind Courtliness ......................................................................................................... 698
Truth and Lies................................................................................................................................ 707
Courtly Nets and Hidden Snares ................................................................................................... 717

The Sixth Scroll: The Temptations Cycle

The Sea and the Sun’s Shadow ..................................................................................................... 728
Heart of the Mountain ................................................................................................................... 740
War Update Letters........................................................................................................................ 753
A Discerning Eye and an Unyielding Resolve .............................................................................. 758
Daidoji ........................................................................................................................................... 768
Beneath the Light of Jade .............................................................................................................. 775
The Shadow of Glory .................................................................................................................... 788
Duty’s Cost .................................................................................................................................... 801
The Stained Cup ............................................................................................................................ 804
Trail of Shadows............................................................................................................................ 813
The Last Leaf Falls ........................................................................................................................ 814
When the Wave Strikes the Shore ................................................................................................. 828
Questionable Shelter ...................................................................................................................... 837
What Cost a Dream ....................................................................................................................... 845
An Impossible Task ....................................................................................................................... 852
The Yogo Curse ............................................................................................................................. 854
The Careful Gardener .................................................................................................................... 875
A Worthy Opponent ...................................................................................................................... 886
The Villain’s Mask ........................................................................................................................ 896

ix
Collapse ......................................................................................................................................... 909

Heroes of Legend
Chapter One ................................................................................................................................... 923
Chapter Two .................................................................................................................................. 937
Chapter Three ................................................................................................................................ 945
Chapter Four .................................................................................................................................. 953
Chapter Five .................................................................................................................................. 965

Battle of Cherry Blossom Snow

Chapter One ................................................................................................................................... 975
Chapter Two .................................................................................................................................. 986
Chapter Three ................................................................................................................................ 999
Chapter Four ................................................................................................................................ 1017
Chapter Five ................................................................................................................................ 1027
Epilogue ....................................................................................................................................... 1035

Appendices
Appendix A: The Great Clans ..................................................................................................... 1046
The Crab Clan ...................................................................................................................................................... 1046
The Crane Clan ..................................................................................................................................................... 1047
The Dragon Clan .................................................................................................................................................. 1049
The Lion Clan ....................................................................................................................................................... 1050
The Phoenix Clan.................................................................................................................................................. 1051
The Scorpion Clan ................................................................................................................................................ 1053
The Unicorn Clan ................................................................................................................................................. 1054
Appendix B: Dramatis Personae ................................................................................................. 1056
Appendix C: Structure of Rokugan, the Imperial Court, and the Clans ...................................... 1057
Appendix D: The Calendar of Rokugan ...................................................................................... 1058
Glossary ....................................................................................................................................... 1059
About the Authors ....................................................................................................................... 1060

x
This is a timeline of the history of Rokugan, spanning from ancient, pre-imperial times until the start
of the present storyline (1123 IC). For a detailed breakdown of the recent timeline, and where each
fiction fits together chronologically, please see the Timeline created by Kakita Kaori.

Timeline is WIP

xi
1
Somewhere along the Emperor’s Road...

Daidoji Nerishma peered into the gloomy undergrowth along the road as the Crane Clan caravan he
was escorting plodded along past him. Above the clomping hooves of draft oxen and the rumbling
and squeaking of wagons piled high with bags of rice, he struggled to discern what had he seen, or
heard—
Nerishma flung himself aside, the arrow that would have slammed into his face thumping,
instead, into a bale of rice. Recovering, he raised his triple-headed spear and shouted, “Ambush! Be
ready!”
Rough men in shabby peasants’ garb erupted from the undergrowth. Nerishma found himself
suddenly locked in melee with two—no, three—of them, who slashed at him with peasant weapons.
Frantically, he knocked aside their blows and struck back, a whirl of dust, sweat, steel, and
confusion—
Silver flashed as the long blade of a naginata slashed one of the bandits, then another, across
the throat. Nerishma gutted the third, then turned in time to see someone rush past him in a billow
of dark cloak, hood held in place with a conical, straw hat. Barely breaking stride, the cloaked
figure—whom Nerishma vaguely recognized as another of the caravan guards—struck down a
bandit with another effortless sweep of the naginata. A few paces, and another fell. Another.
Back along the caravan, guards slashed and stabbed at their ambushers, holding their own,
driving them back. Gripping his spear, Nerishma turned and hurried after the cloaked figure toward
the head of the caravan, determined not to leave his benefactor to fight alone. He caught up in time

2
to find the hooded guard facing a lean man wielding the swords of a samurai—a katana in his right
hand, a wakizashi in his left. The man bore no mon or other heraldry on his drab kimono. He was a
ronin, then, and probably the leader of this bandit pack.
Nerishma rushed to join the cloaked figure, who was probably also a ronin, a mercenary
hired to protect the caravan. But the naginata, dripping blood, swung to block his way. At the same
time, a woman’s voice shouted to the bandit leader, “This caravan rightfully travels the Emperor’s
road. How dare you assault it?”
The ronin raised his swords. “These people and their families are starving. The rice in those
wagons is better filling their bellies than the Emperor’s tax houses. So, they do what they must.”
“It is certainly not your place to decide such a thing. Nor is any excuse sufficient for the
crimes you have committed here today. There is only the penalty, which is death.”
“Death awaits us all,” he replied, taking a stance Nerishma recognized as niten, the dual-
wielding sword style favored by the Dragon Clan. Nerishma again started forward, determined to
help dispatch this dishonorable dog of a ronin—and once more, the bloody naginata moved to block
him. This time, its wielder turned.
The face looking back at him from under the hood shone like alabaster, striking beauty
framed by snow-white hair. Nerishma recognized it immediately and took an astounded step back.
It was Doji Hotaru, Champion of the Crane Clan, and his lord and master. Nerishma
instinctively began to bow, but Hotaru shook her head. “Maintain your stance, samurai-san, and step
back. I appreciate your desire to assist, but I shall deal with this myself.”
“O-of course, Doji-ue. As you command.”
He straightened, still eager to stand with his champion despite her command and his own
stunned amazement. Clearly she’d been with the caravan for some time now, concealing herself in
traveler’s garb. But why? And why would she deign to confront this ronin cur in any case, a man so
far beneath her in the Celestial Order he might as well have been an actual dog?
But it was not Nerishma’s place to question, so he stepped back.
Hotaru turned back to the ronin and raised her naginata. The ronin bowed, and Hotaru
returned the bow. A pause, then the man launched himself at Hotaru like a leaping tongue of flame.
Hotaru jumped aside, lashing out with the much-longer naginata, forcing the ronin to pull his strikes
short. But the man recovered in an instant, dashing inside the naginata’s arc. Hotaru dodged the
katana by a finger span, but the wakizashi opened a shallow gash on her arm.

3
 Nerishma gasped and took an involuntary step—
Maintain your stance, samurai-san.
Nerishma teetered on a knife-edge of warring compulsions: assist his champion, or obey
her...
Gritting his teeth, he obeyed.
The ronin struck again and again, but Hotaru was as water, a flow of movement avoiding the
blows. Still, Nerishma began to despair at his champion’s inability to seize the initiative... until
abruptly she did, becoming as fire, a blur of furnace rage, but channeled by the subtlety of air. She’d
been merely leading her opponent, Nerishma realized, provoking his most devastating attacks,
learning his moves and countermoves, and doing it all in a matter of seconds that had only felt like
minutes.
The ronin fell back, desperately trying to fend off the whirling naginata. Once, he found an
opening and launched himself into it—but it was a feint, leaving him unbalanced and overextended.
Hotaru slammed the naginata into his shoulder, cleaving him to the opposite collarbone. The ronin
toppled back in a shower of blood, mouth gaping, gasping for air that would never reach his lungs.
The Crane Clan Champion didn’t hesitate, swinging a blow that struck off the ronin’s head.
Nerishma waited for his champion to stand down from the confrontation. Instead, she simply
stared down at her fallen opponent. Could there be a worse injury than her arm, one he hadn’t seen?
He started toward Hotaru, saying, “Doji-ue, I remain at your service, should you need—”
“No,” she said, flicking the blood from her naginata, then glancing at her injury. “I have
suffered worse sparring with Toshimoko-sensei.” She looked back along the caravan, then turned to
Nerishma. “The remaining bandits are fleeing. Retrieve the ronin’s blades, Daidoji-san, in case there
is someone deserving of their return. Then, let us return to our places in the caravan and wait for it
to resume its way to Otosan Uchi.”
Nerishma bowed. “Hai, Doji-ue.”
It was not his place to question. Still, for the rest of the trip, Nerishma had to work very hard
at pretending his clan champion wasn’t walking only paces away.

Her sister’s apartment in the Imperial Palace offered a breathtaking view. The gardens below,
Hotaru saw, were impeccably arranged for the season, the fuchsia glow of pink moss a brilliant

4
contrast to the muted cream and pale purple of wisteria. The first roses were coming into bloom,
yellow and crimson counterpoints.
It rivaled the splendor of the gardens in the Chisei District of Otosan Uchi, where the Crane
Clan embassy stood. Rivaled—but certainly didn’t surpass. There: a slight mismatch in the roses, a
minor imbalance of color that would be missed by most samurai. Such imperfection would never be
tolerated in the Fantastic Gardens of Kyūden Doji. But those were the exemplar for the Empire,
always emulated but never matched, not even here, in the Imperial City...
Kyūden Doji. Hotaru touched the windowsill, but no longer saw the gardens. Instead, she
saw the Crane Clan’s ancestral seat of power, a palace of white stone and impeccable grace perched
on cliffs overlooking the Sea of the Sun Goddess. Waves pounded ceaselessly against their rocky
base, a steady, booming rhythm—
The cliffs from which her mother had thrown herself...the waves that had swallowed and
taken her...because her father, Doji Satsume, had driven her to it—
Hotaru’s grip tightened on the sill as her thoughts changed again. Doji Satsume, who had
stubbornly kept the clan championship for years even as he held the office of Emerald Champion:
The Emperor’s personal champion, commander of the Imperial Legions, and most senior magistrate
of Rokugan. Satsume, who had only reluctantly passed the Crane Clan championship to her at the
urging of his brothers-in-law, Kakita Toshimoko and Kakita Yoshi. Satsume, who was now dead,
and just when the Empire needed its Emerald Champion the most.
A thump from behind her. Hotaru glanced back. Framed by a pair of perfectly matched paper
shōji screens, Doji Shizue fixed her cat, Fumio, with a disapproving glare over a scroll he’d knocked
off a table. Leaning on her cane, Shizue returned the scroll to its place and minutely adjusted an
ikebana flower arrangement the cat had apparently also disturbed. Hotaru couldn’t help but smile.
From the polished floor of teak from the far-off Islands of Spice and Silk, to a matched series of
sumi-e ink drawings decorating the walls, Shizue’s apartment was impeccable. There would never
be mismatched rose blossoms here.
Her cane softly tapping, Shizue hobbled over to join Hotaru at the window. “What is it you
see, Doji-ue?”
Hotaru dissembled. “Why, the gardens, of course, resplendent under Lady Sun.” Feigning
disapproval, she added, “And you need not be so formal as to call me ‘ue,’ Sister. Not when we are
alone.”

5
 “If protocol becomes ingrained in the courts of the Crane, Doji-ue, then in this esteemed
place it becomes absolutely reflexive. In any case...is that all you see out my window?”
Her smile fading, Hotaru looked back at the gardens, but this time her gaze skipped over
them, over the palace wall and the cluttered rooftops of the city beyond, to the golden expanse of
the distant Osari Plains. She couldn’t see the Crane blood spilled upon them in her clan’s ongoing
feud with the Lion Clan, of course, but she knew it was there, drying under the late-spring sun.
Hotaru briefly considered just saying, “Yes, that is all,” but shook her head instead. “No. I
see an Empire in turmoil.”
“An attack by bandits, even one so egregiously close to the Imperial Capital, hardly
constitutes an ‘Empire in turmoil.’”
Hotaru touched the sleeve of her kimono, feeling the bandage beneath a white crane
embroidered into the pale-blue silk. A Seppun shugenja had offered to importune the elemental
water kami to speed the healing of her wound, but she’d refused. As she’d told the Daidoji soldier
who’d witnessed her battle with the ronin, she’d suffered worse injuries sparring with Kakita
Toshimoko, her uncle and boisterous old sensei, and had only ever bandaged those as well...
The ronin. The man had been a criminal, and had earned his death.
Still.
Hotaru couldn’t help but understand his motivations, at least in part. Three years ago, a
devastating tsunami had ravaged the Crane Clan’s coastline, destroying some of the clan’s most
fertile lands. No one knew how long it would be before the lands would again yield rice at all, much
less in the abundance for which the Crane were known. The people were hungry, and they would
only get hungrier.
Shizue frowned. “You are genuinely troubled, aren’t you?”
“The ronin who led the bandits was not entirely without honor. His intent was to secure food
for his followers and their families. That is why I allowed him die as a samurai, in combat, rather
than face execution as a common criminal.”
“Well, you must give me a full accounting of it all. As storyteller to the Imperial Court, I am
always eager for new tales to tell. This one will not only entertain the court but also bolster your
reputation.”
“Always the storyteller,” Hotaru said, shaking her head. “Anyway, yes, I agree that a single
bandit attack does not portend the doom of the Empire. But when the bandits are peasants, simply

6
seeking food...” She touched the bandage again. “And famine is only one of the difficulties we face.
Our disagreement with the Lion over the ownership of Toshi Ranbo drags on. I must travel there
soon, in fact, to evaluate the situation for myself. To the north, the Dragon seek our help in dealing
with a growing sect of dissidents and heretics, but we have little to offer them. To the south, the
Crab are badly pressed on the Carpenter Wall, but we have little help to offer there, either. And with
each passing day, the Scorpion grip on the Imperial Court grows ever tighter...”
Hotaru made herself stop. “But then,” she went on, “there are always problems afflicting the
Empire, aren’t there? Perhaps I am simply not yet used to my role as clan champion.”
Hotaru swept her naginata through the final movements of the kata called One-Strike Blade,
then stopped, assuming a resting stance. Kakita Toshimoko nodded from where he stood beneath a
nearby sakura tree, opening his mouth to offer...something, but Doji Satsume spoke first, cutting
him off.
“That was very good, my daughter.”
Hotaru bowed. “Thank you, Father.”
“Do not thank me,” Satsume said,his face stone. “Very good is merely a guest house on the
road to perfection—a place to visit briefly, not to stay. You, Hotaru, seem to have made it your
home. Someday, you will lead our clan. If that leadership is merely very good, then you will have
failed.”
That had been...a year and a half ago? So, only a few months before Satsume had stepped
down as clan champion, elevating Hotaru in his place. She had never heard him comment on the
quality of her leadership of the Crane since, not even to say if it was very good.
And now he was dead.
Shizue leaned on her cane. “If I may be so bold,” Shizue said, “I would agree that your
newness to the position may be an issue. Take your arrival here. As exciting as it turned out, why in
the world were you traveling with that caravan in the first place, rather than with the official
entourage to which you are due? And in secret, at that?”
“Thanks to the bandits, it is not much of a secret now, is it?” Hotaru said, waving a dismissive
hand. “I simply wished to arrive in Otosan Uchi discreetly, to gain some time to learn what I could
about Satsume’s death before the inevitable fanfare caught up with me.”
“A bold, even rash thing to do—certainly not something Father would have done. Which is
why I suspect you attempted it.”

7
 Hotaru just looked out the window.
“Well,” Shizue went on, “you would have just run headlong into the Emerald Magistrates
and their investigation regardless. The death of the Emerald Champion is no small matter.”
“Perhaps, but it does not matter now, does it? I have no choice now but to accept whatever
the official sources are prepared to share.”
Shizue sniffed and made a fractional adjustment to another ikebana arrangement, this one
near the window. “There are still somewhat less-than-official sources available, one of whom is
standing right in front of you. The most important skill of a storyteller is the ability to listen, after
all.”
“Very well. What has this less-than-official source heard?”
“That Satsume’s death remains a complete mystery. He appears to have simply...died. That
has, of course, led to all sorts of speculation among the rumormongers.”
“Such as?”
“Some say the Fortunes simply decreed it was his time to return to the Karmic Wheel. Others
suggest more...nefarious causes.”
Hotaru narrowed her eyes. “This is not one of your stories, Shizue. The dramatic flair is
unnecessary.”
Shizue smiled and minutely adjusted the ikebana again. “Something else that has become
ingrained, I’m afraid. Anyway, some suggest his death was neither natural nor accidental, and that
now the Emerald Championship is available for those who might covet it.”
“If that is the finding of the magistrates, then a price will be demanded in blood.”
“Not least by our brother.”
Hotaru sighed. “Indeed. Kuwanan-kun certainly has not felt the need to wait for the
magistrates’ findings. He is already demanding blood in the name of our clan’s honor.”
Shizue leaned on her cane. “Lord Satsume was his—our—father. I suspect family honor also
fuels his outrage.” She cocked her head. “As I would expect it does yours?”
Hotaru turned back to the window. “The death of Doji Satsume, Emerald Champion, is
indeed a grave matter. His death is a great loss to the Empire. And if it does turn out he was
murdered, then yes, there will be blood—a great deal of it. Perhaps there will even be war.” She
looked down into the garden. “The death of Doji Satsume, our father, however...” She paused, her
gaze on a koi pond surrounded by colorful hibiscus. “Perhaps that is simply justice finally done.”

8
 A long moment passed. Finally, Shizue said, “Our mother’s death was, in the end, her own
choice—”
“A choice she never should have been forced to make,” Hotaru snapped, turning. “Father
might as well have pushed her off that cliff himself—”
A soft tap at the door interrupted her. Shizue gave Hotaru a puzzled look, then hobbled past
the shōji screens to the door. She opened it to see a servant who immediately bowed to the floor,
then moved aside, letting someone else enter.
Hotaru’s breath caught as she recognized the new arrival. Bayushi Kachiko, Imperial
Advisor of Rokugan—
—and the most beautiful woman in the Empire.
Fighting the desire to smile, to rush at Kachiko and embrace her, Hotaru simply bowed. So
did Shizue, but more deeply, as befit her status relative to that of the woman who advised the
Emperor himself. At the same time, both automatically assumed a perfect façade of formality.
“Bayushi Kachiko-dono,” Hotaru said. “What a pleasant surprise. To what do we owe the
honor of a visit from the esteemed Imperial Advisor?”
Kachiko, a crimson and black study in sinuous charm, returned their bows. “How could I
not pay my respects to the honored Champion of the Crane Clan upon her arrival in the Imperial
Capital?” Pausing to admire one of Shizue’s ikebana arrangements, she let her fingers brush a sprig
of gardenia, whose meaning in hanakotoba, the language of flowers, was “secret love.” “It would
appear, however, that there has been a significant breach of protocol, for which I must profusely
apologize on behalf of the Imperial Court. We were given no proper notification of your coming to
Otosan Uchi, much less of your having actually arrived.”
“It is not a matter of concern,” Hotaru said.
Kachiko’s eyes glinted through the minimal mask that framed them, leaving the rest of her
features, as fine as delicate porcelain, exposed. “Nonsense. Rest assured that appropriate corrective
action will be taken so that, in the future, you shall receive the recognition to which a clan champion
is entitled.”
Each of the Scorpion’s movements was deliberate and calculated even as she spoke. From a
kimono slit to reveal almost scandalous glimpses of her legs as she walked, to a head tilted just
enough to expose a barely appropriate amount of shoulder, Bayushi Kachiko was all about effect—
and that effect was the seductive promise of more.

9
 Hotaru glanced at her sister. “Shizue-san, if I may presume upon your hospitality, would you
allow us the use of your apartments for a brief time?”
“Of course, Doji-ue. It gives me an excuse to enjoy the gardens before the setting of Lady
Sun. Fumio-chan, do not give our guests any trouble.”
The cat blinked back at Shizue, then knocked a writing brush onto the floor.
Shizue sighed, then bowed, turned, and walked out of the room, sliding the door closed
behind her.

Hotaru and Kachiko maintained their air of courtly propriety for a moment after Shizue had gone,
then broke into warm smiles. Kachiko stepped forward, taking Hotaru’s hands in hers and opening
her mouth to speak. Before she could, though, Hotaru pulled her closer, meaning to kiss her...
She hesitated at a stray thought—of her husband, now on his way to Shizuka Toshi to learn
what he could about a recent attack by pirates and about the man, Yoritomo, who led them. Stopping
herself, Hotaru simply looked into Kachiko’s dark eyes instead.
A silent moment passed. My heart, Hotaru thought... surely, Kachiko can hear it beating, so
hard and quickly. Kachiko finally broke the silence.
“So, Hotaru, what is the meaning of sneaking into the city, truly?” Kachiko put on an
exaggerated look of mock suspicion. “Were you trying to avoid me?”
“Of course not. I merely was hoping to have some time to myself, before all of the inevitable
ceremony wrapped around me like suffocating silk.”
Kachiko released Hotaru’s hands. “And why would you do that?”
It was Hotaru’s turn to be mischievous. Offering a coy smile, she said, “Well, perhaps, rather
than trying to avoid you, I wanted some quiet time to spend with you.”
An eyebrow lifted over the top of Kachiko’s mask. “That can certainly be arranged. In fact,
you must allow me to host you this evening. I have just procured some sake from Ryokō Owari
Toshi that will make even one so discerning as the leader of the Crane Clan jealous.”
“I look forward to it.”
A moment passed, and then Kachiko drew back, her manner becoming more formal. “While
it flatters me to think you were skulking your way into Otosan Uchi just to spend some time with
me, that is not the reason for your somewhat... unwarranted discretion, is it? I think you were hoping

10
to take advantage of the relative anonymity, however brief, to learn some unornamented truths about
Lord Satsume’s death.”
“An obvious plan, then...and apparently not a very good one.”
“On the contrary. Had you not involved yourself in an unseemly fight with bandits on the
road, you might have gotten away with it.”
Hotaru gave Kachiko, the woman known as the Mistress of Secrets, a wry look. “Really?”
“For a time. I may eventually come to know everything of note that goes on in this city, but
eventually isn’t instantly.” Kachiko’s expression became grave. “As for Lord Satsume...you have
my deepest condolences, Hotaru. He was a great man, and an honored and loyal servant of the
Empire. He will be missed.”
Hotaru wanted to appear—to be—appropriately grief stricken, but she could only see the
cliffs near Kyūden Doji. “He will be missed,” was all she finally managed to say.
Kachiko’s eyes narrowed at Hotaru’s flat tone. “I am no stranger to problematic relationships
with one’s father...but if I may be presumptuous, Lord Satsume is dead, Hotaru. I would hate to see
your bitterness toward him outlive him, at least for very long.”
Hotaru looked at one of Shizue’s shōji screens, depicting mountains stark against a red
sunset. “I do not deny my bitterness. But it is more than that. The circumstances around his death
are...troubling.”
“Ah...yes. I understand that the Emerald Magistrates continue their investigation. Perhaps
the secrecy of your arrival had some benefit after all, and you have heard something I have not?”
Hotaru turned her gaze on Fumio the cat, who’d settled himself onto a tatami mat near the
ink brush he’d vanquished. Were this not Bayushi Kachiko, Hotaru might have thought she was
actually concerned she had missed something...or that she might even be worried something was in
the process of being discovered that wasn’t meant to be. But this was Kachiko, so it was
inconceivable that she wouldn’t know exactly what the Emerald Magistrates had found so far.
...some suggest that his death was neither natural nor accidental, and that now the Emerald
Championship is available for those who might covet it.
Kachiko’s brother, Hametsu, daimyō of the Shosuro family, was reputed to be a master of
poisons, more than capable of making it appear that someone had simply...died. And while there
was little love lost between him and Kachiko, that they were both loyal to their clan was beyond
question.

11
 ...with each passing day, the Scorpion grip on the Imperial Court grows ever tighter...
Hotaru looked up from the cat to find Kachiko watching her.
“No,” Hotaru finally said. “I have heard nothing, aside from stray bits of gossip. Like
everyone else, I can only wait for the Emerald Magistrates to complete their investigation.”
A pause; then, Kachiko nodded. “Of course. In the meantime, do you intend to remain in the
capital?”
“For the time being. There is a funeral to prepare. I had originally thought to have it at
Kyūden Doji, but I think it would be more appropriate for it to be here, in Otosan Uchi.”
“An appropriate choice indeed. If there is anything I can do to assist, you need but ask.”
Hotaru took Kachiko’s hand in hers. “Thank you. That means a great deal to me.”
Kachiko placed her other hand over Hotaru’s. “Now, I would love to stay, but I am afraid I
have matters of court to attend to. I do expect to see you this evening, though.”
Hotaru wanted nothing more than to be with Kachiko now, but she simply nodded. “Of
course.”
“Then I shall send a servant with the details. Until then...” Kachiko held Hotaru’s hand in
hers a moment longer, then released it and turned to the door. She and Hotaru exchanged appropriate
bows, and then she was gone.
For a while, Hotaru simply stared at the door.
Eventually, she turned and walked back to the window. The play of light and shadow in the
garden had changed with the movement of Lady Sun, making it seem a completely different place.
Again, though, her gaze was drawn beyond it, to the horizon. Rice fields, fallow and empty...blood
upon the Osari Plains...darkness pounding at the Carpenter Wall...heresy and sedition...
If Rokugan was the Emerald Empire, then the emerald was flawed—small cracks
threatening to lengthen, to widen, to cause the whole of it to crumble to fragments and dust.

12
Some weeks later, in contested territory...

Matsu Tsuko crouched within a thick copse of trees, waiting in ambush with nearly a dozen other
units of Lion Clan samurai. The dense foliage hushed the screams and steel clanging of the fighting
below, but nothing could rid the air of the raw-iron smell of blood. The scent tickled her into a fury,
her legs itching to spring, to attack. She eyed her commander, Akodo Toturi, but the smoothness of
his face betrayed no hint of his strategy as he watched the battle from afar.
What is the fool waiting for?
Tsuko’s contingent had arrived nearly an hour ago, ready to reinforce the dwindling forces
of Akodo Arasou, the Lion Clan Champion, in the territory dispute with the Crane Clan.
In an act of insolence, the Crane had bolstered their occupying forces in Toshi Ranbo, the
northernmost Lion city, to force a Lion army away from the contested grain-laden Osari Plains in
the south. Arasou had been campaigning at the foot of the city for several weeks, building siege
weapons, and needing reinforcements only to make his final push to retake the city and ensure the
Crane could not use it as a staging ground against them. Arasou’s older brother, Toturi, had been
summoned from the monastery to answer that call for aid... yet...
Why does he hesitate?
A small Crane contingent sped past their hiding place, bearing torches, intending to sneak
behind Arasou’s forces and set fire to their battering rams. She clutched her katana and waited for
Toturi’s golden signal fan to herald the charge. However, he remained still.

13
 “What are we waiting for?” Tsuko hissed, the heat of her blood curling her fingers tighter
around her katana until her fist shook. “The Crane are right there!”
Toturi did not answer, merely lifting his fan parallel to the earth, the sign to wait. Tsuko
turned away in disgust, shifting her attention to her comrades-in-arms, their anticipation as palpable
as her own. Down the line, Matsu Gohei grinned, unnervingly jovial in the face of danger as ever.
Just behind her, Kitsu Motso’s boots creaked as he fidgeted, likely attempting to figure out what
Toturi was thinking.
As if thinking works. She glared at Toturi again. Weakling. Arasou wouldn’t wait on a sly
calculation. Victory is only moments away!
Tsuko strained to see Arasou in the faraway skirmish. The fiery gold glint of Arasou’s helmet
caught her eye as he sliced through a Crane ashigaru in a single stroke. The Crane’s shoulder and
head parted, and Arasou powered through the gap straight into another Crane warrior, smashing into
his face with a fierce blow and bellowing in a ferocious battle cry. Tsuko’s place was by his side,
fighting toward victory, not hiding in a thicket like a shy mule with a cowardly master.
Despite Arasou’s ferocity, the torch-bearing Crane had proved enough of a distraction to
pull the Lion from the city’s walls. In that moment, a deluge of Crane spearmen poured through the
gates, crashing into the forces at Arasou’s back like a blue wave over golden sand. Screams shook
the sky as the spear line slammed into the Lion troops, dividing them from their battering rams.
Arasou signaled for a regrouping retreat, and the Lion samurai fell back, running past the trees of
Toturi’s hiding place with the Crane spearmen in furious pursuit.
“Toturi!” Tsuko hissed as the Lion and Crane armies passed by, but Toturi still did not flinch,
merely watching. She raised an arm as if to strike him, but Motso snatched at her elbow.
“Patience, Tsuko-sama!” Motso muttered, struggling to keep his grip on her arm as she
wrenched it from his grasp. “Our commander is waiting for the Crane momentum to swing past
recovery!”
Suddenly, Toturi flicked his fan, signaling the charge. Battle cries rang from the forest as the
Lion reinforcements burst from the trees, finally joining the fray. They caught the Crane in a tight
pincer attack as Arasou, seeing the fresh Lion troops, pressed his forces hard in retaliation. Tsuko
cut her way through the battle to where Arasou slashed through three Crane ashigaru, making short
work of them despite his battle fatigue.

14
 “You are late,” he boomed to Tsuko, smiling, Crane blood and dust spattered all over his
handsome face. He spun with dexterous footwork to counter a nimble Crane samurai’s slash at his
throat, finishing him with a swift strike.
“Your brother was hesitating,” she yelled over the clashing steel, deftly slicing through a
Crane samurai who stumbled too close to her. The body fell with a heavy crunch, and she leaped
over him toward a Crane who danced around Motso, threatening to take off his head with her
graceful kata. Tsuko crashed into her, disrupting the pretentious fluidity of the Crane fighting style
and landing a killing blow.
“Toturi-kun thinks too much!” Arasou laughed, leaping forward to meet two more Crane
ashigaru in their frantic attempts to regain the upper hand. “I always tell him that!”
“That’s why you’re clan champion instead of him!” she called back, turning to face a spry
Crane samurai in blue-lacquered armor. Tsuko charged, challenging the graceful agility of the Crane
with a violent thrust. Despite Tsuko’s superior strength, the Crane’s deft spins and parries deflected
all the blows away, and his armor mitigated the power of her strokes. A quick cut sliced across her
arm, her shoulder, her side, her face, but she smiled despite the pain.
We are the teeth of the Lion!
Tsuko hurtled forward to crowd her opponent’s defensive stance, overpowering it with brute
ferocity. With a loud cry, Tsuko slashed at a weak spot at his throat, and he fell to the ground.
Drum beats sounded from atop the walls of Toshi Ranbo, and the Crane responded with a
retreat. Tsuko wheeled around to find Arasou again, ready for orders of pursuit, but Toturi had
gotten to his brother first. Tsuko ran to catch the last of their exchange.
“... siege would be better,” Toturi insisted, again the calmness of his face clashing with the
violence of the scene. “If we take the city by force...”
“So you admit that should we pursue, we would take it?” Arasou said, his handsome brow
furrowing. “The odds are now on our side! Thanks to that pincer attack, we have seriously depleted
their forces. All we need to do is push! The gates are open! Today we regain what is rightfully ours!”
Toturi’s mouth twisted in seriousness, and he stretched to his full height as if trying to play
the older brother. “Taking it by force could spark all-out war with the Crane and turn the Emperor’s
favor against us. Through siege, we can hope the Crane will surrender to save face and avoid a
slaughter.”

15
 Tsuko pounced forward. “Hope for surrender? What kind of Lion are you?” she snarled.
“Trust your instincts, Arasou-sama. Remember, ‘Those who attack first shall win.’ That is our path
to victory. A siege has no glory, and hope cannot win us the city.” Arasou locked eyes with Tsuko,
pride blazing in his gaze. He smiled. Her heart burned.
“Lady Tsuko agrees with me, Toturi-san. With her advice, I shall lead our final charge
toward the city. Toshi Ranbo will be ours!”
With a powerful arm, he signaled his banners. The Lion forces, united under their champion,
fell into disciplined ranks, ready for the charge. Tsuko and Toturi joined the lines on either side of
Arasou.
“To victory!” he shouted, taking a last look at Toturi, then at Tsuko, before charging after
the retreating Crane.
Tsuko raced toward Toshi Ranbo, her heart swelling as her brothers and sisters of the Lion
rushed to overtake the foe. Arasou and his elite swordsmen bounded toward the Crane in fierce
strides, overtaking the first of their prey in moments. With a mighty leap, he crashed down upon the
back of a large Crane spearman, knocking him to the ground. He tumbled forward to knock the legs
out from under another retreating Crane before springing into the air to again smash down upon
another.
Tsuko veered to the right to cut her own path toward Toshi Ranbo’s gates. She stabbed at
one Crane, who tripped another with his falling body. Tsuko hurled herself at them, finishing them
quickly. Her katana lodged deep in the lacquered folds of a breastplate, so she kicked at it to wrench
her sword free. She regained her pace.
Just three hundred more paces to the gate! Victory is upon us!
A flash of blue and white emerged from Toshi Ranbo. Doji Hotaru, the Crane Clan
Champion, appeared with a small body of archers to provide cover fire for the fleeing Crane. They
let fly a volley, raining death down upon the gaining Lion. Two zipped past Tsuko’s face, so she
darted toward the gate to find shelter from the hail of arrows. She leaped over several mangled Crane
bodies that marked Arasou’s ferocious path ahead of her. She managed a glimpse of the top of his
shining helmet.
Tsuko sped forward to catch up to him. She could hear his battle cries, which swelled with
the passion of battle. He raged through the Crane ranks, slashing through blue bodies on either side
of him, leaves before a tempest. He was a mere two hundred paces from the gate. Tsuko could see

16
Hotaru’s face contorted in fear as the raging force approached. The Crane Champion’s eyes
glistened with tears.
“Victory!” Tsuko cried. “Arasou, lead us to victory!”
As Tsuko drew closer, however, the look on Hotaru’s face became clear. It was not fear: it
was sorrow.
The Crane Clan Champion drew back her bowstring in a long, graceful pull and let an arrow
fly. Her bolt sped like lightning straight into Arasou’s chest. The Lion Clan Champion didn’t break
pace. Tsuko shoved through the throng, trying to clear a path to Arasou, but a few dozen Crane
ashigaru still crowded the way, ramming her in all directions. She dropped her katana and pushed
back against the bodies.
Another arrow flew from Hotaru’s bow. The arrowhead slammed through the back of
Arasou’s helmet with a sickening snap. His momentum slowed, and he tumbled forward onto the
earth.
Tsuko screamed, but she could not hear the sound. Silence shuddered through her body, her
stomach, her throat, her heart. Numbness spread down her limbs. Her legs shook, barely holding her
up as she stumbled. Eventually, after an eternal moment, she stood over what was once the greatest
samurai in the Lion Clan.
She fell to her knees, choking as her lungs stiffened, every part of her trembling in disbelief.
No!
She clutched at his shoulder, her hands trembling too fiercely to lift him.
This is a dream! A nightmare!
Toturi rushed to her side and heaved Arasou over. Hotaru’s arrow stuck out of his eye,
reddish water welling up its shaft, spilling into the other clear, open eye that saw nothing.
Shivering, Tsuko turned from Arasou’s dead gaze to Toturi, but he did not notice her. With
his jaw clenched, the only sign of his pain, he stared at Hotaru. The white-haired samurai wiped
away her tears before fleeing with the remaining Crane back into Toshi Ranbo, the gates closing
behind them.
The silence broke. The chaos of the battlefield flooded back over Tsuko—moans of the
wounded and dying, crimson spattering blue and brown alike.
Motso approached, Arasou’s fallen katana in hand. Crane blood still dripped from its blade,
staining Arasou’s golden armor.

17
 “Lord Toturi,” Motso whispered, his gentle voice cracking. He turned the ancestral hilt
toward the bereaved brother. “As oldest living heir of Akodo One-Eye, you are now clan champion.”
Tsuko shut her eyes and blindly reached out to grasp Arasou’s gloved hand. It was still hot.

“War!” Tsuko roared, slamming her fist onto the table, scattering maps and troop markers onto the
ground.
Toturi clenched his teeth, reading the faces of the other Lion Clan samurai assembled in the
war pavilion like a tragic story. Their faces flickered in the firelight, sorrow deepening the lines of
their frowns. Kitsu Motso fidgeted, unable to make eye contact with Tsuko or Toturi. Matsu
Agetoki’s wrinkled mouth lengthened into a grimace. Toturi turned back to Tsuko. Hers was the
only face that wore rage—pure, seething rage.
“War against the Crane!” Tsuko repeated, the harshness of her voice slamming into the
others as though to batter them into submission. “Today’s losses should not go unpunished! It is an
insult to our clan. It’s—”
“The price of battle!” Agetoki growled. The old Lion glared at her. “Our clan above all
should know this price and the further cost we would pay for all-out war with the Crane!”
“The Emperor will not look kindly on an illegal declaration,” Motso mumbled. “Arasou
chose to attack the Crane. The Crane can claim they were defending themselves, so we cannot seek
immediate vengeance for our champion’s death. We must go through the proper channels.”
“More waiting?” Tsuko spat. “Toturi, stop behaving as a simpering child and act! Seek
retribution! Reclaim Toshi Ranbo, the Osari Plains, and more from those thieving murderers. Make
them cower for their insults! Think of our clan’s honor! You are clan champion now. What will you
do?”
Their stares demanded an answer. He was now champion, he whom his clan had once passed
over for his younger, stronger, more powerful brother, Arasou.
What will I do?
A thousand pathways opened up before him. Choices. So many choices.
Arasou. Death. The Emperor. The Empire. Hotaru.
Each road through his mind branched a dozen ways like a river, like a bursting star. He
followed each strand in an instant, discovering the plots, gauging the people and their actions,
inserting uncertain figures, each dangerous, each a risk.

18
 Revenge. War.
He began counting the bodies, the true costs it would demand.
“Damn you, Toturi!” Tsuko yelled, scattering his thoughts. “You coward! You are not
worthy of leading as champion! You were passed over for your lack of martial skill. You are a
mockery of our ways!”
“Silence, Tsuko-sama!” Agetoki thundered, his hand snapping to his katana. “Your
insubordination is a grievous error in discipline! Akodo-ue is now in command, and—”
“Stop!” Toturi shouted, towering over the Lion samurai before him. His brow wrinkled in
seriousness, but he set a calm hand upon the table. “Agetoki-san, I thank you for upholding our
ways—discipline, honor, and decorum—but Lion voices shall never be silenced. Tsuko-san has a
right to speak, especially in this time of grief and heartbreak.”
Tsuko’s eyes narrowed in steely wrath. “How dare you!” she whispered, her voice sharp like
a knife. She marched out of the pavilion.
Agetoki shook his head in shame, lowering his hand from his sword. “Fool. Lady Tsuko’s
ways are unbecoming of the Matsu family daimyō.”
“Agetoki-san,” Toturi replied. “You know well that the Matsu are born and bred to fight for
any cause they find just. Do not hold this against her. As an Akodo, I must take the responsibility to
lead even the wildest.”
He turned from the council to stare into the fire, hoping it would illumine the correct path
through the labyrinth of his thoughts. But the signposts were illegible in the darkness.
Finally, he spoke. “I shall not make decisions until I have spoken to the clan generals and
the other family daimyō. I will also seek counsel from the Emperor. Send messengers to the palace
in Otosan Uchi, informing him of my brother’s death. Motso-sama, you will ride to Yōjin no Shiro
and prepare the funeral rites for Arasou-sama. I will have Tsuko-sama follow to deliver the body.”
“She will not want to go,” Motso said.
“Duty rides before us,” Toturi said, lowering his head in reverence. “He was her betrothed,
and this is her last obligation to him.”
Motso bowed and left the tent.
Agetoki remained a moment, standing by the door, a full head and shoulders shorter than his
new champion but still straight and proud in his carriage. “Akodo-ue,” he said, resting a strong,
calloused hand on his shoulder. “Your time has come. You know the Akodo ways, but a lion is more

19
than his roar, more than his mane, more than his teeth, more than his heart. A lion is all of these.
Tsuko-sama was right to ask what you will do, because now all of the Lion Clan families look to
you to act as one.”
Toturi nodded. “I’m afraid, with my brother’s loss, a schism is inevitable. Tsuko-san’s rage
will poison many against me.”
“And as clan champion, you must not let that divide us.”
“Never.”
Agetoki bowed and vanished into the night.
Toturi wandered back to the fallen maps and troop markers. He picked them up in several
armfuls and set them back on the table in a heap. A wooden lion figurine had a leg broken off.
This is a mess, isn’t it? He picked up the figure and touched the amputated stump. My mess.
Toturi spied the map of Toshi Ranbo on top of the pile, the paper crumpled into crooked
plains and false mountains. Once again, the threads of pathways started to appear. He could see
Tsuko’s rage swerving off into the distance toward an avenger’s fire. He saw the Emperor’s polite,
bloodless answer to the news of Arasou’s death.
Hotaru-san killed my brother today.
Those words burst unexpectedly from a thick dam in his mind. With a gasp, Toturi crushed
the lion figure to splinters and squeezed until his fingers were numb. Slowly, he opened his palm,
and there lay the lifeless, wooden lion. Drops of blood welled around the bone-like slivers where
they had pierced his skin.
My brother... Arasou...
A rustling at the door roused him. Toturi turned to see Motso standing there.
“A message, Akodo-ue” he said, a little winded, as if he had just run across the camp. “From
Champion Doji Hotaru.”
He held out a delicate white scroll with a silvery seal upon it. Toturi took it and nodded
before Motso bowed and ran out. The paper was scented with plum blossom, symbolizing all at once
perseverance, hope, and the transitoriness of life. Elegant calligraphy curled over its surface: “To
the Lion Clan Champion, Akodo Toturi.”
He broke the seal.
“Akodo Toturi, brother-in-arms, friend of my heart, and now Lion Clan Champion, I write
in the heat of this sorrowful night as the sun sets upon an era for your clan. Akodo Arasou-dono was

20
the best of your clan, a noble warrior whose life called down the pride of your ancestors from the
Heavens. He was an admirable foe, and...”
The flowery Crane diplomacy and social obligation melted in a pause of the brushstrokes.
“... I know you are too strong of soul to admit your pain. However, if my own soul can hardly
fathom the horror of what occurred today, I know that somewhere in you, this same sentiment lurks,
this anguish, this blackness.
“I can offer no consolation that will bridge this abyss. I can make no reparations for what I
have taken. Yet, you are now clan champion, and what you do will not only speak for the Akodo in
your brother’s memory but also speak for your clan.
“I know you to be level-headed, wise, and honorable, so I trust that you will take the best
course of action; yet, though we have been friends many years, I can hardly guess what that will be.
I write to ask. Toturi-san, what will you do?
“Loyally, faithfully, your comrade of old and fellow servant to the Emperor, Doji Hotaru.”
Toturi shut his eyes.
Hotaru killed my brother.
He sank to the floor, dropping the bloodied Lion figure and Hotaru’s letter, lowering his
head into his hands as the scene played over and over before him.
Two arrows. The broken body. Hotaru’s tears. Tsuko’s heart. Arasou, why did you not
listen? Why did you leave me with this mess?
What will you do? They had all asked—Tsuko, Agetoki, and even Hotaru.
What will I do?
A writhing chaos rose before him, again bursting in a snaking multiplicity of pathways, each
needing to be followed. Twisted knots of actions to take, the inevitable cry for revenge, the threat
of war, Arasou’s goals and victories cut short in a thousand bleeding dead ends all twisted around
choices Toturi dared not make. The trails bled together into a deep ocean and crashed around him.
He pressed his heart with his bleeding hand.
Arasou’s voice, echoing deep from a memory, cut through the confusion. “Brother, you think
too much.” The image his brother’s strong face loomed before him, his eye now missing like that of
Akodo One-Eye, smiling. “You think too much.”
“I know!” Toturi responded aloud. He ground his fists into the earth. “That is why you were
chosen! Not me. You were the man of action. You were the one who could do everything!”

21
 Silence answered him, the silence of the dead. Arasou would never answer him again, and
in that silence, Toturi felt a pause in which the universe waited for him to act.
What will I do?
Toturi opened his eyes. On the far side of the tent, rising above the broken lion figurine on
the floor, the Lion Clan mon flapped in a gentle breeze, golden and glowing in the firelight in fierce
splendor.

22
Meanwhile, in the northernmost mountains of Rokugan...

A more cautious man—or one with less cause—would not have attempted to leave Shiro Mirumoto
so early in the season. Even by Dragon Clan standards, the winter had been a harsh one, and although
its grip was loosening, it had yet to let go. Snow still towered in heaps where heimin laborers had
shoveled it out of the town streets, and at night the cleared ground became a tiny replica of the
mountains, the mud frozen into stone-hard peaks and valleys.
Mirumoto Masashige would have preferred to wait another week, or even two, before setting
forth on his journey. Not for his own sake—though as the years passed, his joints objected to the
cold more and more—but for the sake of his followers. He risked their safety by traveling so soon
after the equinox, and he knew it.
But delay would only risk greater trouble for the clan as a whole. And Masashige knew that
if he were to ask, the men and women of his retinue would insist on leaving as soon as he required,
even if that meant riding into the teeth of a blizzard.
He would never insult their honor by asking. So, they mounted up in the courtyard of the
castle and headed out into the bustle of the town, down the main street toward the gate: seven bushi
and their ashigaru, townspeople scattering out of their way as they swept through. It would be
enough, Masashige hoped, to ensure a quiet journey to the west and north. Even in the best of times,
the Dragon mountains were not the peaceful fields of the Crane, and after such a hard winter, he had
to take precautions.

23
 With his thoughts on the hazards of the journey ahead, he did not see the hazard in front of
him until it was almost too late.
Masashige hauled desperately on the reins. His gelding reared, shrieking, and skidded
sideways, one hoof slipping in the mud. Masashige threw himself clear and rolled, knowing that if
he did not, the horse would land on his leg and break it. The equine scream that overlaid the clatter
of his armor told him his gelding had not been so lucky.
But the child—
Before he even regained his feet, Masashige looked for the child he had almost trampled. He
found her kneeling in abject apology at the side of the street. A girl, perhaps twelve years old,
dressed in the simple kimono and hakama of a bushi trainee. She pressed her forehead to the ice-
slicked mud. “Mirumoto-ue, please forgive this careless one!”
Masashige pulled her upright, scanning her for injuries. “You are unhurt?”
“Yes, my lord. I have no excuse for my carelessness—forgive me!”
Relief turned his bones to water. If I had hurt a child...
“My lord!” His hatamoto, Mirumoto Hitomi, stood over his fallen horse. “Rakusetsu is badly
injured. I don’t know if he can be saved.”
Masashige would have sacrificed a dozen horses to save this child’s life. Whatever issue
plagued the Dragon, whatever offense they had given to the Fortune of Fertility, it only affected
people, not the animals of their lands. Horses and wolves and bears thrived, while humans dwindled
with every passing year. The problem had crept up on them for a century or more, before the sharp
minds of the Kitsuki family noticed it; by now, it was undeniable. The Dragon were not having
enough children.
And among the samurai class, the problem had become desperate enough that the Dragon
had resorted to desperate measures. The girl Masashige had just saved—was she born to a samurai
family? Or was she originally a peasant, identified by some Agasha shugenja as possessing enough
spiritual merit to be taken in and given the rearing, the training, the identity of a samurai?
There was no way for him to tell by looking. In truth, Masashige did not want to know. He
collected his wits and his dignity, stepping back to a more respectable distance. Addressing the girl,
he said, “You must show more caution in the future. A bushi does not fear danger, but she must be
alert to its presence.”
The girl knelt once more in the mud of the thaw. “Hai, Mirumoto-ue.”

24
 “Go,” Masashige said. Only after she had departed did he turn back to Hitomi and his horse.
A quick examination told him the truth. Even the most talented horse doctor could not save
his gelding; the healing would be too slow, even with a sling to hold Rakusetsu’s weight off his bad
leg, and he would never be fit to ride again. Only the prayers of a shugenja might restore his mount,
and Masashige was loathe to beg the kami for their blessings in so minor a matter. Not when the
Heavens themselves seemed to be condemning the Dragon for some unknown sin.
He did the necessary work himself, cutting Rakusetsu’s throat so the gelding would not
suffer. Afterward, Hitomi cleaned his knife while Masashige stepped into a nearby temple. He
poured a dipper of water from the fountain over his hands and shaved head, then sought out a monk
to take the impurity of death from him with a paper wand. By the time he emerged, one of his bushi
had gone back to the castle and returned with a fresh horse. Then he mounted up once more. Outside
the walls of Shiro Mirumoto, trouble was stirring. He needed to speak to the clan champion before
it was too late.

The loss of Masashige’s gelding had unsettled his followers. None of them spoke of it openly, but
he saw the effects in the frequency with which they prayed or paused to make offerings at roadside
shrines. An unpleasant omen to start their journey—and when they reached Tall Pine Village, they
found another.
“Where did the tree go?” Hitomi asked abruptly, breaking the silence that had lasted for most
of the afternoon.
The pine had stood atop a ridge east of the village, alone in its splendor, visible for miles
around. Now the ridge stood bare. Squinting, Masashige could just make out a broken stump, jagged
and black. Uneasy murmurs rose behind him, then fell into silence.
They passed the remnants of the tree not long before sunset. A winter storm must have blown
it down, and the local heimin had chopped away a large portion of the trunk. Masashige instructed
his clerk, Kobori Sozan, to make a note of that and inquire whether the peasants had received
permission from their overseer to burn the material as firewood. By law, large treessuch as this one
were the property of the local daimyō, for use in construction—but that didn’t stop heimin from
taking the wood for their own use. And in a winter as bitter as this one had been, he doubted they
would have hesitated to do so.

25
 Tall Pine Village was a small place, significant only because it served as a way station for
travelers. Judging by what they found there, Masashige and his retinue were the first people to come
through since the thaw began. Their chambers were unprepared, the tatami musty and damp, and
the food served up was winter’s leavings, coarse grains boiled with burdock root.
“Why no rice?” Hitomi demanded.
The headman, Sanjirō, bowed low. Hitomi was a tall woman, and although she was slender
beneath her armor, every bit of her was muscle. She could snap the headman in two without resorting
to her sword. “Please forgive our humble village, Mirumoto-sama,” he said. “Vermin broke into our
stores last fall; what rice they did not eat was badly fouled. We kept this grain for you, but it is
nearly the last we have.”
Hitomi scowled, but when she looked to Masashige, he stopped her with a tiny shake of his
head. Sanjirō had been the headman of Tall Pine Village for over a decade. He was not the sort to
gorge his people on stolen rice and lie to a daimyō about it. No, the village’s misfortunes were just
another sign of the Heavens’ displeasure.
“Fit to make a Crane faint,” Hitomi muttered, but after that she subsided. The Dragon were
no strangers to hardship, and by this point in the season the meals in Shiro Mirumoto were not
substantially better. Only with the thaw would things improve.
The thaw, and the favor of Tengoku. Masashige could only hope to hasten one of them.
In so small a village, with the weather still so bitter, there was little in the way of diversion
after the meal ended. His bushi sat shoulder to shoulder around the brazier, keeping the heat within
the ring of their bodies and talking quietly among themselves. Masashige slipped outside to deal
with necessities, watching his breath fog the air in the moonlight. In the softer lands to the south,
cherry blossoms would already be blooming.
The cold, still air carried sound with perfect clarity. Not far away, in the hut where Sanjirō’s
wife, Yuki, had prepared their meal, he heard a woman’s voice murmuring, “Shoshi ni kie. Shoshi
ni kie. Shoshi ni kie.”
Masashige’s blood ran colder than the wind. Devotion to the Little Teacher—or, if written
with a different character, absolute trust in the Little Teacher.
It was the mantra of the Perfect Land Sect.
The Perfect Land—here, in Tall Pine Village. The sect had flourished for years in the
hinterlands of Dragon territory, in the villages too small to have names, so small they were lucky if

26
they saw a monk from the Brotherhood of Shinsei twice a year. People living in those isolated
valleys developed many strange customs, and they gladly latched onto a theology that told them
they did not have to learn any difficult practices or cultivate merit within themselves; they only had
to call on Shinsei, the Little Teacher, to be freed from the cycle of rebirth.
Of course it appealed to peasants, who lacked the time and education to devote themselves
to the requirements of the Brotherhood. Three simple words, and Shinsei would save them. The
practice was controversial at best; the Phoenix had outlawed the kie entirely, visiting harsh
punishments on anyone, monk or peasant or even samurai, found chanting that phrase. They said it
was heresy—a false path, not a genuine route to enlightenment.
Masashige was no religious scholar. He understood very little of the theological debate over
the kie and its efficacy or lack thereof. He knew only that followers of the Perfect Land Sect had
grown more vocal in recent years—and more violent. To find them here, not in the hinterlands, but
in a key way-station on the road north...
Other concerns forgotten, Masashige ducked back into the house. “Hitomi-kun. A moment
of your time.”
She rose without hesitation and followed him outside. The voice had fallen silent, but
Masashige led Hitomi away from all possible ears before he outlined to her what he had overheard.
Had there been a time when Hitomi smiled? Perhaps before her brother died, but rarely since
then, and hardly at all in recent years. Her scowl now was characteristic, as was her response. “Is
that why they have no rice? Because they have been sending it to the sect leaders?”
“I doubt it,” Masashige said. “The Crane have had very little rice to sell in recent years; our
lack now is only natural. I am more concerned by this evidence of the expansion of the sect.”
Ordinarily Hitomi’s unbroken attention would have been on him, but now she stood warily,
hands gripping her sword hilts, ready to draw them both. Her eyes darted left and right, searching
the quiet shadows. “Our road had to pass through this village. If they intend to ambush you, this
would be an ideal place to do it.”
The reports had said they had grown bolder—but surely not that bold. “What would it gain
them? To kill the Mirumoto family daimyō would only brand them as criminals in the eyes of the
entire Empire.”
“They are already criminals,” Hitomi said.

27
 “Only in Phoenix lands. Here, there has been no decree against the sect. There are many
paths to enlightenment, Hitomi-kun, and if there is the slightest chance their mantra might lead them
to that goal, should they not be permitted to follow it?”
Her jaw hardened. “They say they will find enlightenment after death, in the paradise they
say Shinsei has created for them. People who believe that will not hesitate to throw themselves on
our blades for their cause.”
She might be correct. The last reports he’d received before winter set in had hinted that the
followers of the sect were arming themselves. That, more than hungry wolves or the usual late-
winter bandits, was why he had ordered his party to travel in armor. The leaders of the Perfect Land
said the world had entered the Age of Declining Virtue, and that samurai were to blame for the
Empire’s many ills. Such words walked close to the border of treason—or even crossed it.
Masashige took a deep breath, feeling the frigid air bite into him. “What course would you
advise, Hitomi-kun?”
She answered without hesitation. “Stop the sect from taking root here, Mirumoto-ue. We’ll
gather all the heimin together and question them until we know how many adherents there are. Then
make an example of them, to show others what fate awaits them down that road.”
Seven bushi and their ashigaru: they could do as Hitomi said. Leading military expeditions
into the crevices of the mountains was nearly impossible, but here the problem was easy to reach.
Easy to reach—and difficult to solve. Following Hitomi’s advice might very well precipitate
exactly the kind of widespread armed conflict he hoped to avoid.
But not following her advice...what price might the Dragon pay in future days? What price
might the Empire pay?
Masashige’s jaw tightened. He imagined his own son kneeling alongside Sanjirō and Yuki,
head bent to the strike of the blade.
“A decision now would be premature,” he said at last. “I already intended to take this matter
up with the clan champion. I will report the situation in Tall Pine Village to him, and see what course
of action he favors.”
Hitomi didn’t like it, he knew. She always wanted swift action, even if the cost would be
high. But her discipline was stronger than her anger; she bowed and murmured, “As you say, my
lord. I will have the horses ready at first light tomorrow. And we will keep watch tonight.”

28
Masashige would never be presumptuous enough to question the wisdom of his clan’s divine
founder. The Kami Togashi had valued solitude—a trait shared by all of his successors—and there
was no better place to find it than in the forbidding peaks of northern Dragon territory, the fringes
of the range known as the Great Wall of the North. If it made conferring with the clan champion
difficult at the best of times...well, no doubt there were good reasons for that, ones beyond
Masashige’s own ken.
At least the road was always clear for him. It wound along narrow ledges, up steep slopes,
and over passes still choked with snow and ice, but it was there. Those who sought the High House
of Light without invitation could find themselves lost in the mountains, sometimes forever.
The High House towered above Masashige’s party as they approached. Half-fortress, half-
monastery, it clung to the bare stone of its peak like the talons of some great beast. The only
approach was via a narrow set of stairs, more than a thousand steps high. At the base, a cluster of
buildings waited to receive visitors, providing shelter to those who would not enter the High House
itself. Silent acolytes, children in the simple robes of those training to join the ise zumi, took the
reins of their horses.
Masashige climbed the stairs alone, leaving the rest behind—even Hitomi. Over his shoulder
he carried the satchel with his clerk’s reports, ready to deliver into the appropriate hands. In other
parts of Rokugan, such a task would be seen as beneath the dignity of a family daimyō, but not here.
Someone waited for him at the top of the steps, an unmoving figure who did not so much as
shift his weight while Masashige made his steady way upward. He was recognizable even at a
distance: even among the ise zumi, few would show themselves in public wearing short, green-dyed
jinbei trousers and nothing more.
But Togashi Mitsu was exceptional even within his order. While samurai throughout the
Empire might adopt children if they had no suitable heirs of their own lineage, the leadership of the
Dragon had always passed to the most talented monk of the ise zumi, regardless of the monk’s
origin. The boy Sō had been an acolyte at Fukurokujin Seidō, a foundling left there by unknown
parents, when the clan champion had found him. Now, Sō had become Togashi Mitsu, heir to the
Dragon.
Most heirs would dress in fine kimono or armor, but Mitsu’s sole decoration was his tattoos,
which his near nakedness put on glorious display. They wreathed his torso and arms and even his
lower legs: monkeys and crows, centipedes and dragonflies, a great crab across his chest and a tiger

29
across his back, and the head of a dragon arching up his neck and over his shaved scalp. All the
work of Togashi Gaijutsu, the greatest tattooing master among the ise zumi.
Winter had sapped Masashige’s conditioning; he had to concentrate not to visibly gasp for
breath as he greeted the clan’s heir. “I have come to request an audience with Togashi-ue.”
“Of course,” Mitsu said. The High House was never surprised by Masashige’s arrival. “I am
to take you to meet with him as soon as you are ready.”
I hope that’s a good omen. Even a family daimyō often had to wait to speak with his clan
champion. Masashige surrendered his satchel to an ise zumi waiting inside the gate, a woman new
enough to the order that she had only two tattoos gracing her bare arms: a snake and a butterfly.
Then he followed Mitsu into the High House of Light.
Unlike most castles in Rokugan, its fortifications did not consist of stout walls and deep
moats. The mountains were the first line of defense, and the strange forces that so often hid the road
were the second. Anyone who overcame those and still wished to assault the High House faced a
choice between that narrow staircase and the sheer cliffs of the peak. Where another clan champion’s
capital would have archers’ towers, the High House had shrines and meditation halls; where other
families had armories and barracks for ashigaru, the Togashi had the ise zumi with their strange
abilities. An atmosphere of serenity pervaded the place—serenity and something else, an
otherworldly touch that lingered in the small hairs on the back of Masashige’s neck.
He bathed quickly, grateful to shed his armor, which felt so out of place in this monastic
setting. When he finished, he dressed in the much simpler kimono and hakama provided for him.
The wind cut like knives through the thin fabric, but he set that aside, focusing on his task.
Togashi Yokuni, Champion of the Dragon Clan, did not receive Masashige in a grand hall.
Instead, he sat on a bare platform atop one of the precipitous drops that served the High House of
Light for an outer wall. In sharp contrast to Mitsu’s scant clothing, Yokuni wore armor of antique
design, with a separate panel to cover the right-hand side of his body. Masashige had never seen
him without that armor—including the helmet and the mempō that covered his face.
Masashige knew he should not compare his own champion to that of the dishonorable
Scorpion Clan. But to serve a man without ever seeing his face...it was difficult.
Mitsu knelt a short distance from where Yokuni sat cross-legged. Masashige bowed low,
touching his forehead to the stone, while the mountain air slid like ice over his bare scalp. “Lord

30
Togashi. Although winter is hardly gone, matters within your lands cannot wait. I beg leave to
present my report.”
A flick of Yokuni’s gauntleted hand told him to continue.
Like a man composing an ink painting, Masashige laid out the vital strokes, leaving the finer
details for later consideration. The harshness of the winter, and the looming shadow of Lion
aggression to the south. The continuing failure of Dragon births. The danger posed by the Perfect
Land Sect. Forces pressing in on all sides, threatening to crush the clan between them.
“Togashi-ue,” Masashige said, “we must reach beyond our own borders and form an alliance
with the Phoenix. Separately, each of our clans is easy prey for the Lion, but together we may yet
resist them. Furthermore, our own efforts to solve the mystery of our decline have come to naught;
of all the clans, the Phoenix are the most likely to have the wisdom necessary to aid us. But they
will not do so unless we make concessions, and there, we have only two real choices.
“The first would be to break with the Unicorn. The Isawa remain suspicious as ever of the
Iuchi meishōdō techniques and other heretical ways; they would be glad to see us close our western
border. But we benefit from the Unicorn’s military strength. And more importantly, without the
marriage alliances we have formed—without the children those widows and widowers bring into
our ranks—we would be gambling our entire future on the hope that the Phoenix can find the
solution to our problem.”
He paused. Even a family daimyō could not stare his champion in the eye, but he searched
every tiny shift of Yokuni’s body language for a hint of the man’s thoughts. The armor defeated
him: it made Yokuni as inscrutable as the stone beneath them. Masashige had no choice but to go
on.
“The second possibility is that we take action against the Perfect Land Sect, as the Phoenix
have been urging for years. If we can root out that heresy—if you judge it to be a heresy indeed, my
lord—I am certain that Shiba Ujimitsu-dono would consider it a great sign of friendship to his clan.”
Yokuni spoke at last. “When the grain falls before it is ripe, the harvest is poor, and famine
follows.”
Did he mean that the time for action had not yet come? Masashige had years of experience
with his clan champion, and still struggled to interpret Yokuni’s cryptic responses. This time,
however, he thought the meaning was clear. No samurai should fear death—but each life lost was
the clan’s strength sapped, at a time when they could ill afford it. “Yes, the cost would be high.

31
Carrying war into our own valleys is difficult, and any strike against the sect is likely to spur
rebellions in response. But there is another possibility.”
He bowed once more to Yokuni. “Togashi-ue, I have heard stories of an ise zumi with a gift
that might spare us the pain and waste of bloodshed. They say that when Togashi Kazue-san speaks
to a man, her words make their way into his mind until he can think of nothing else, and he loses all
will to fight. If this is true, she could neutralize the leaders of the sect, taking away the central force
that makes them so potent a threat. With them gone, our chances of returning their followers to the
true path of Shinsei by some means other than the sword would be much higher.”
Mitsu spoke up, without any signal from Yokuni that Masashige could see. “Kazue-san’s
ability is not a thing to use lightly, Mirumoto-ue. Death only destroys the body, and those who fall
in service to the Heavens better their karma for the next life. But to interfere with the mind...that is
another matter.”
“I do not suggest it lightly,” Masashige said. Despite his control, the words came out sharp
and hard. “Were it a handful of lives against a handful of minds, I would not hesitate to draw my
sword. But our clan’s survival hangs in the balance. What are a few heretics and rebels
against that?”
What is a single child, against that?
Masashige turned away from the monk, pressing his forehead to the stone once more in
supplication. Too often it was like this: Masashige bowing beneath the weight of his troubles, the
decisions he lacked the authority to make...while Yokuni, who possessed the authority, sat in silent
contemplation. And around them, the world drifted ever closer to the brink of disaster.
“Please, Togashi-ue,” Masashige said in the strongest voice he could muster. “I beg you to
lend me the assistance of Togashi Kazue-san. With her, we may yet avoid a slaughter.”
The rush of the wind was his only answer.
And then, the rattle of armor shifting.
Masashige looked up, alive with hope. But to his horror, he saw that Yokuni had gone rigid,
his head thrown back, his body trembling within the ancient armor.
“Be calm!” Mitsu stopped him with an outflung hand. “There is nothing to fear. He is in the
grip of a vision, nothing more.”
Masashige knew that the Champions of the Dragon had inherited some measure of their
Kami’s foresight, but he had never seen it strike home. He waited, fists clenched, hardly breathing.

32
Now. At last. He will tell me what to do, and it will be correct, because the Heavens themselves have
guided him.
It seemed to last forever. Then the trembling subsided, Yokuni’s body relaxing. Mitsu
crouched at his side, but assistance was unneeded. Yokuni raised one hand to his mempō, then
lowered it.
“I see a wave,” he said, his voice barely audible over the wind. “A great wave, rising up to
strike the land.”
Masashige had never seen the ocean—only depictions of it in paintings and woodcuts. But
he could imagine the shape described by Yokuni’s hand: the cresting edge of the wave, curling
overhead like a scorpion’s tail.
“Where it strikes...” Yokuni’s voice faded, then returned. “Devastation. Otosan Uchi laid
waste; countless lives lost.”
Another tsunami? Masashige flinched. The one that struck Crane lands three years before
had wrought devastation all across Rokugan, in forms ranging from food shortages to Scorpion
dominance in the courts. The Imperial Capital had been spared the brunt of it, but might not be so
lucky a second time.
“I will send a messenger to Kitsuki Yaruma-san immediately,” Masashige said. “He will
warn the Emperor.”
But Yokuni shook his head and went on.
“Stripped by the wave, the wasteland becomes a battlefield. On its barren plain there is
nowhere for the enemy to hide, no shelter to protect them from the Empire’s might. It...” His eyes
were almost impossible to make out, deep in the shadows of his helmet, but Masashige had the
sensation that Yokuni was staring far past him, to the lands beyond their own.
“It must be so,” Yokuni murmured. “If the battle must come, then let it be on the barren
plain. Only there can we prevail.”
Not an actual wave. Not a tsunami. Yokuni spoke in metaphors; what he foresaw was
something else entirely.
Something, Masashige feared, that had nothing to do with any of the troubles he had come
here to address.

33
 The clan champion focused on Masashige at last. “Prepare your bushi. Tell the daimyō of
the Agasha and the Kitsuki families: the Dragon must move beyond our borders at last. What
transpires in our mountains is a mere pebble against the avalanche that is coming.”

34
Meanwhile, to the far southeast...

A brisk wind scudded across the dry plains, tugging at the robes of the shugenja and snapping the
banners atop the Kaiu Wall. Unmoved, Hida Kisada stared impassively from the battlements to the
Shadowlands beyond, where a vast force of enemy troops swayed and shifted like grass.
In the eyes of his troops—even battle hardened as they were—he had seen the shadow of
fear. Samurai do not fear death, he thought. An easy sentiment for those who shelter in the safety
of our wall. My samurai know death too well not to fear it. But they will face it anyway.
Kisada stared down the foe with the same impassive gaze for which the Champion of the
Crab Clan was so well known. Around him gathered his children and closest retainers, who did not
seem to share the Great Bear’s taciturn demeanor.
“Look at them arranging their forces so considerately. One could almost mistake them for
Crane,” sneered Yakamo, Kisada’s eldest child, as he casually lifted his tetsubō onto his shoulder,
posturing with the great iron and jade war club as a youngster might a toy. “It will make it even
easier to crush them outright.”
From Kisada’s left came a worried “hm,” and he knew without needing to look that it came
from Sukune. “I do not like this,” his youngest son said matter-of-factly. “Shadowlands troops do
not often amass in such a fashion. They are much more likely to hide their real strength.”
“A bit of a costly maneuver for it to be a trick, displaying their power like this,” mused O-
Ushi, and Kisada glanced to his right briefly to see his daughter frowning in consternation before
she looked at him. “Do you think this might have a connection with the attack to the north, Father?”

35
Kisada gave a low grunt of consideration, overshadowed by Yakamo’s sudden rough laugh and the
thunk of his son’s war club thumping the ground.
“Children, quaking at the sight of goblins!” the young man sneered. “Such a proud example
for our noble father. Do you want me to read you bedtime stories while the real warriors fight?”
Sukune bristled. “And you would run headlong into peril, endangering our clan with your
bloodlust? Do you think that you can take on an entire army by yourse—”
Kisada grunted quietly and held up a hand, satisfied when his children immediately lapsed
into a reluctant silence. The champion’s eyes tracked once more over the immensity of the
battlefield, noting each unit like pieces on a game board, arranged in precise rows. A frown creased
his features briefly. They are much more likely to hide their real strength. He imagined a small pile
of pieces hidden beneath his opponent’s hand. Unease clenched his heart.
Turning from the vista before him, he scanned along the wide corridor atop the great Wall
for his chosen advisor. “Kaiu Shihobu!” he bellowed, deep voice ringing with the power that led
warriors to victory and death. A tall woman looked up from one of the giant siege engines nearby,
then turned and approached at a brisk pace, wiping her dirty hands on a cloth. Though the leader of
a powerful family, Shihobu was never far from something she had built or repaired, and it was
apparent she would not be satisfied the battle could begin until she had inspected all of the siege
equipment personally. Her bow was brief, but full of respect.
“Hida-ue, how can I serve?”
“What is the latest report on the near-breach in the Ishigaki Province?”
“Slowed by rains, but proceeding apace. The damage was severe, but the Kaiu estimate
completion within seven days.”
Kisada gave a small nod of agreement. “With our current numbers, what are our siege
capabilities?”
The Kaiu daimyō’s usually warm brown eyes dimmed, and her frown puckered the long scar
on her cheek. “We have the troops needed for the siege engines, and a small force to repair damage
and shuttle ammunition. But we are spread thin.” She sighed. “The Kaiu family will never fail the
Crab. But if the Wall itself is hit by that force out there, we cannot guarantee its security.”
Sukune let out a long, worried breath. “Our jade stores, Father...” The pale young man
trembled a moment as he suppressed a cough, but he swallowed hard and continued. “They are
nearly empty. If a significant force breaks through, our resources are insufficient to deal with a

36
possible incursion of the Taint. If the land becomes corrupted, we do not have the means to cleanse
it. We will lose ground.”
Kisada turned his eyes to a nervous young retainer, who started and bowed as he saw the
clan champion looking his way. “Yasuki Oguri. What of our missives to the Emperor? Have they
not gotten through?”
Oguri shook his head, his words wary. “They have, Hida-ue. My father has confirmed they
have been delivered, and he has sent the Emperor’s replies back. But each time it is the same. A
formal letter, the finest calligraphy on the smoothest paper. ‘The Emperor regrets he cannot send
any aid at this time.’ For supplies, for troops, for jade...” The young man looked down awkwardly,
embarrassed. “It is always the same response.”
Yakamo growled, slamming his war club on the ground again. “A sham of courtesy!” he
bellowed, seething. “I should go to Otosan Uchi myself and demand what we are owed as the
protectors of Rokugan!”
Kisada waved a hand, as if sliding a door closed, and Yakamo cut off his rant, subsiding into
low grumbling. “Do no disrespect to the Yasuki. Their daimyō is there now. If Yasuki Taka cannot
catch the Emperor’s ear...” The thought trailed a moment, and then Kisada snapped his attention to
Shihobu once more.
“Respect to the Kaiu and their Wall,” said the champion briskly. “But where are the weak
spots closest to this location?”
Shihobu’s brows pinched in thought. While Kisada’s visage had been still as granite as he
planned, the Kaiu daimyō’s face was all energy, the calculations flickering across her features like
a merchant’s hands on a soroban, beads clacking back and forth. “Just north of here. A larger stream
required installing a runoff pipe. It should have a grate, but no seal is perfect. If you require, I will
assign a retainer to show you.”
Kisada nodded his thanks, then cleared his throat; around him, every spine straightened.
“This is the duty of the Crab. The Kaiu Wall stands to protect Rokugan, but our people do as well.
And even stone can only take so much before it shatters. As Kuni Osaku once raised a wall of water
so the Wall could be built, so today shall we raise a wall of iron.
“Kaiu Shihobu.”
The tall daimyō bowed to her champion.

37
 “Direct all your troops to crew the siege engines and ferry ammunition. Hiruma Yoshino,
split your troops. Longbows atop the Wall, short bows at the base—each with a signal arrow.”
The daimyō of the Hiruma family bowed, the well-oiled leather of her scout garb bending
without the slightest creak. “Anything else, Hida-ue?”
Kisada considered a moment. “If you think they are ready, then proceed.” Yoshino bowed
again, and Kisada could feel the weight of the others’ curiosity. It hardly mattered: either the plan
would succeed or it would fail, and everyone else had other things to consider.
“Kuni Yori,” he continued, and the Kuni family daimyō bowed as well, dark mustache
twitching with a too-wide smile. “Split your forces as well—a quarter to support the Kaiu, and the
rest to aid on the ground. Your skills and those of your shugenja will be needed on the field.”
Finally, he turned to his children, who all bowed as one. “Yakamo, you will be at my side.
Sukune, you will remain on the Wall to relay my commands.
“O-Ushi. Collect your best troops, follow the Kaiu retainer to the weakness Shihobu spoke
of, and do sweeps of that area. Make it clear the utmost vigilance is required.”
Although his daughter made no visible sign of displeasure at being left out of the main battle,
Kisada sensed her bristle a moment before she bowed to him. “I will make it so, Champion,” she
agreed, turning crisply on her heel to leave, a retainer nearly stumbling in his haste to follow her.
Tension rippled again as Yakamo grinned, his expression impish, and Sukune glared at his brother,
grinding his teeth in an unspoken argument. Kisada raised his chin sharply, and once again the
siblings quieted, the tension dispelled like a hand waving away smoke.
Turning from his children’s argument, he took a final look from the top of the Wall. The
forces of the Shadowlands roiled and shifted, waiting patiently for their encounter. Such patience
felt wrong: a storm would never choose to wait for a soldier to find shelter before loosing a deluge
of rain.
The Crab Clan Champion gave a low grunt—one which all who knew the Great Bear
understood as his final punctuation before considering a matter closed—and turned to descend the
stairs, his sons and retainers following as smoothly as one of Shihobu’s machines.

Just outside the gates of the Kaiu Wall, the forces of the Crab moved into position, waiting for the
word of the man who once again stared impassively into the distance. As the others around him
shifted from foot to foot, or shrugged to adjust where their sode armor sat on their shoulders, Hida

38
Kisada waited, as tall and impassive as the cedars that rose beyond the Wall’s protection. To the
daimyō of the Hida, armor had always felt as comfortable as his own skin—although, feeling the
beginning of an ache at the base of his neck, he wished the weight of years sat on him half so well.
The Crab forces waited patiently as each of their units arrayed themselves into formation,
and Kisada carefully counted each of their number, measuring them against the plan in his mind.
One by one, his commanders surrounded him and his eldest son—who stood at his right, cracking
his neck and throwing back his shoulders like a dog straining at the leash—until the Hiruma daimyō
arrived, her steps as silent as snowfall. Kisada’s dark eyes met hers a moment and locked, asking a
wordless question answered by her small nod.
“The court is arrayed,” stated Kuni Yori, in his sibilant half-whisper of a voice. “We await
your orders, Hida-ue.”
Kisada nodded at his generals and withdrew his gunbai from his belt, raising it aloft—all
around him, the shifting of thousands of bodies came to an abrupt halt, the great clack of legions of
troops coming to order echoing across the vast landscape. Each gesture of his war fan meant a
shifting of stones across the wooden wilderness of a game board, and the movement of hundreds
along the windswept plains of the Shadowlands. A point and left-to-right sweep of the war fan sent
the shugenja of the Kuni to the flanks to prevent the enemy from cutting off a retreat back to the
Wall. A point and right-to-left, and the Hiruma scouts raised their bows, daikyū above the Wall and
hankyū below. A point upward with a backward flick, and the siege engines atop the Wall were
readied, the grinding of their mechanisms audible even from hundreds of feet away.
Finally, the troops settled into their positions, and Kisada lowered the gunbai a moment,
finally clicking his mempō into place, the steel and gold faceplate hiding all but his focused eyes.
He raised the war fan once more, holding it high in the air as his generals looked on nervously: the
balance of life and death on a winged wand of iron, emblazoned with the Crab Clan symbol.
Moments passed as though the world were taking a final breath.
Then the gunbai sliced forward, and the world erupted into chaos as battle was joined.
Shrieking hordes of bakemono ran forward—some actually aflame, for what the goblins
thought of as an “honor”—and scores of them fell, riddled with Hiruma arrows.
A hideous tentacled horror rose roaring from the enemy ranks, but its roars turned into
shrieks as a well-aimed rock from a Kaiu catapult found its mark, the monster writhing in agony
before shuddering and going still.

39
 The shambling forces of undead attempted to push against their southern flank, but the
prayers of the Kuni shugenja fractured the earth beneath their feet, shattering them against the
ground.
Above all this chaos rose the towering form of Hida Kisada, gunbai sweeping through the
air, guiding the Crab forces as tiles on a board, rising to meet threats and bring them low.
Suddenly a hellish shriek split the air: a detachment of onikage, ridden by the foul undead
samurai known simply as the Lost, burst forth from enemy lines, sweeping in a scythe-like maneuver
and heading directly toward the heart of the Hida forces.
Kisada frowned. He had set his troops to tease the enemy into striking from the left, to seize
them in a pincer maneuver—he had even chosen this spot for his command post, about a hundred
meters from the Wall, for its rough terrain. To attack them from the right, through an area meant to
disrupt swift charges, and where the Crab’s defense was strongest, seemed a move ill considered for
even the most foolish of the Shadowlands spawn. Still, the onikage were powerful creatures, and
the Lost even more so.
In his mind, Kisada saw a game piece pushed forward by the enemy, breaking the lines as
its own troops fell away: its best forces in one attack, counting on just enough surviving to strike at
the heart of its opponent’s command. He was only too glad to make this attempt a futile one.
The gunbai hissed through the air, sending a naginata-wielding detachment forward. Even
against the unearthly speed of the undead horses, the bladed spears of the Crab troops slashed with
deadly efficiency, sending armored corpses flying as their mounts gave eerie screams and crashed
to the ground. As the remaining Lost staggered to their feet, more troops flooded in to engage the
enemy—and Yakamo, no longer able to restrain his bloodlust, gave a great bellow and lunged into
the fray.
Kisada growled at his son’s foolishness and opened his mouth to call him back—just as the
ground shook beneath his feet, and the standard sounds of battle coalesced into screams of terror. A
vast shape, black and rough as stone, burst out from behind the shattered mass of onikage and
crashed through the Crab troops like a meteor, scattering bodies in its wake.
So the strike at the command had been genuine after all. But he had misidentified what the
enemy’s most powerful force was—when he had sent his troops to deal with the cavalry, he had left
himself exposed. An uncharacteristic curse slipped from his lips as he brought his kanabō up just in

40
time to block the twisted black blade of his opponent, the impact sending the Crab Clan Champion
staggering backward.
Kisada’s enemy stretched itself to its full monstrous height: an oni, its massive bulk armored
in chunks of chipped obsidian, its eyes burning like the fires of Jigoku itself. “Crab Champion!” the
beast thundered, pointing its misshapen saber at Kisada. “You and your troops will fall! I will take
great joy in tearing off your limbs and devouring you alive, like the meat you are.”
Kisada allowed himself a smile, dangerous and thin as the blade of a knife, and held his war
club at the ready before him. “Then let us begin,” he declared, and the oni leapt forth with a howl.
The world around the champion seemed to fall away, all complexity stripped free as cloth
before flames. There was only he and the oni, strike and parry, lunge and dodge. The oni roared in
anger as the champion’s iron club shattered one of the obsidian plates lashed over his demonic body;
the champion bit back a groan as the beast’s backhand caught his thigh, sending him briefly
stumbling to one knee. A chuckle from the monster became a strangled grunt of surprise as Kisada’s
lunging swipe caught it under the chin, cracking part of its jaw and spattering the ground below with
sticky black blood. The aged champion grunted as he blocked another strike with his kanabō, his
joints howling with pain as they never had in his youth. Age was another opponent he faced, and
his best defense was simply to shut it away—an act well-rehearsed with the pragmatism and
stubbornness for which his clan was so well-known.
Suddenly the oni bellowed in surprise: more black blood splattered onto the ground, and a
lone bushi appeared with ōtsuchi in hand, the warhammer slick with gore. The figure took a moment
to duck its head to Kisada and hurriedly begged forgiveness for the interruption. Kisada, still in the
haze of battle, only grunted a reply. The two joined against the creature, the smaller warrior acting
as distraction while Kisada broke more of the beast’s armor, the foul obsidian shattering into pieces,
bits embedding themselves in the creature’s flesh. The oni growled and took another step forward,
making as if to swing its blade at both its assailants—
—and howled in pain as the ground gave away beneath its left leg, burying it up to the knee.
The oni roared in anger and confusion, jerking as its leg was further pinioned, lashed down by rough
ropes and spiked into the earth. Small furry creatures scattered within the hole, scurrying away into
tunnels within the earth. Hiruma Yoshino’s strange plan had worked, then. He whirled at the feeling
of the bushi’s hand on his arm.

41
 “Forgive me, my lord!” the warrior yelled. “But the battlefield is in disarray! Sukune-sama
craves your signals. I can hold this beast here while you disengage!”
The haze cleared, and the chaos of the battlefield returned—Kisada heard at once the roars
of more oni, and the screams of his troops. Gone was the red-tinged mist of combat, and the game
board slid into the champion’s mind once more. He clapped his hand upon the bushi’s and nodded,
and turned away as the warrior ran at the restrained monster, hammer in hand. The image was lost
in moments as Kisada retreated, and the battle swallowed the pair.
Kisada turned back toward the Wall to see Yakamo laughing with bloodlust and smashing a
trio of Lost warriors to bone splinters. With a bellow, he called his son’s name, and the young man
started as if in a dream, then wordlessly ran to his father’s side. Through scores of surging goblins
and Lost, and the madness of a hundred small fights, they pushed back to the edge of the Wall,
where Hiruma Yoshino and her archers were nocking and firing arrows as quickly as their hands
could move. Yakamo grabbed one of them, who yelped and nearly dropped his bow in surprise.
“Prepare the signal!” Kisada commanded, and the archer hurriedly grabbed a special reed
arrow and shot it into the sky. As it arced upward, a plume of fine red dust trailed after the missile,
and then it plunged toward the ground with a piercing shriek that echoed across the field.
Almost instantly, the Crab forces began to withdraw, pulling back toward the Wall, and with
a howl of triumph, the Shadowlands forces started to follow them...
Then Kisada raised his gunbai high, and the sudden backward strike of the war fan was
echoed by a twanging chorus from above the Wall as countless mechanisms released at once. The
front lines of the advancing forces had just enough time to scream—if they were able, and not
voiceless like the undead—before they were obliterated by every rock, stake, and boulder the Kaiu
siege engines were able to fire.
For a brief moment, there was dust and silence. Then Kisada’s war fan waved once more,
and the troops returned to the field, bloodied but determined to continue.

Smoke, oily and black, billowed upward from the pyre of the Shadowlands dead, as bodies—smelly
bakemono, crumped Lost, chunks of oni—were thrown onto the growing pile by a group of peasants
covered head to toe in dirty brown robes. The Mudcrows were a common sight after battles, either
drawn by the need for coin or commanded to as punishment for some crime. It was easy to tell one
from the other, as the ones supporting families carried trinkets to ward off the Shadowlands Taint:

42
charms tied to sleeves, lockets holding papers with prayers scrawled on them, chipped bracelets on
thin wrists. They surely knew charms were worthless against such a grave evil—only blessed
materials like jade showed any signs of preventing the physical and mental corruption inherent in
the Shadowlands and its creatures.
The Mudcrows splashed oil wherever the pyre’s flames faltered, forcing it to choke down its
vile meal of death. There were more here, he realized suddenly, than he’d ever seen in one place
before. There had been many battles in his life and aches such as the ones he felt now. But today
had been different. Both his aches and the conflicts had been growing worse. One day, his strength
would not be sufficient to master either of them.
The sound of a stomping gait approached, and the daimyō knew before he heard the voice
who it was. “Quite the battle!” Yakamo exulted, laughing with pride. “And this is hardly the only
pyre for the enemy dead. Next time the Shadowlands scum should just save us all the trouble and
throw themselves into the fire directly!”
Kisada remained silent, and this time Yakamo seemed oblivious, recounting how he had
taken down a trio of goblins with a single swipe of his tetsubō. The clan champion turned his head
slowly, and a nearby samurai hurried to his side, long since accustomed to his master’s subtle
gestures.
“My lord?”
“There was a bushi who aided me against an obsidian-clad oni, allowing me to withdraw
and focus my attention elsewhere.” Kisada commanded softly. “Find out what has become of the
samurai, and report back to me immediately.” The retainer bowed crisply and retreated, and Kisada
turned his attention back toward the Kaiu Wall just in time to see a messenger jogging toward him.
Yakamo made as if to intercept the woman, but stopped as the messenger held up a cloth with O-
Ushi’s personal seal, bowing to them both.
“My lords, I beg your pardon. Lady Hida has returned, and she has asked that I request your
presence in the parade grounds. Her brother Lord Sukune has been summoned as well.” Kisada
grunted acceptance and gestured for the messenger to lead the way, and he and his eldest son
followed.
“It’s a shame you didn’t slay the oni yourself, father,” Yakamo drawled as they walked.
“Especially one clad in obsidian. Imagine the glory of the kill! You—”

43
 Kisada stopped short, and Yakamo stumbled a moment in confusion, turning to look up at
his father as the daimyō crossed his arms over his chest and drew himself up to his full height. “Have
I need of glory, eldest? Do you think the Hida family requires it? Or all of the Crab, do we seek such
things?”
Yakamo opened his mouth to reply, but a gesture from his father shut it again.
“You must learn this lesson well, eldest,” Kisada said, keeping his voice low. “Strength is a
grand thing. Yours reminds me much of my own, when I was your age. But strength is iron, meant
to be tempered. And glory is as fine a thing, but it is nothing without pragmatism. Remember that.”
Yakamo nodded—a bit sullen but properly humbled—and with a knowing grunt, Kisada began
walking again. His son and their retinue smoothly followed after.
O-Ushi and her troops waited in the large courtyard just inside the Kaiu Wall’s gates, armor
splashed with black blood, and a small group of prisoners—bakemono and an ogre—chained in a
line behind them. As Yakamo and Kisada approached, Sukune ran down the last steps from the
Wall, out of breath and wheezing slightly, and O-Ushi gestured quickly for one of her retainers to
offer her sickly sibling a drink from her canvas waterskin. “Be at ease, Brother, I have survived,”
she said kindly, concern evident in her voice.
“I see that—not all of your troops—were as fortunate,” Sukune replied, catching his breath.
“That and your prisoners make me wary. I expected a smaller number to try and break through our
lines.”
O-Ushi’s expression grew grim. “Actually, two groups tried to break through the Wall. The
goblins snuck through the pipe that Kaiu Shihobu mentioned, but the ogre and his brethren actually
climbed over a shorter section of wall. That was where my troops were lost—but we were able to
capture one all the same. I’ll make certain to give him to Kuni Yori-sama, per his earlier request.”
The color drained from Sukune’s already-pale face, and he staggered a moment, the
implication of the dangers seizing on him. Yakamo growled and ground his teeth, tensing his hands
on the hilts of his weapons. Only Kisada remained outwardly calm, nodding slowly. “Send a pair of
shugenja to the sites of the battles to check the area for Taint—and make sure they are well equipped
with jade.” Sukune made to open his mouth to protest, but nodded instead.
“I will check our stores, Father.” He sighed. “I know there will not be much, but I will do
what I can. I pray they will not need it.”

44
 The tension was disrupted by the appearance of the samurai whom Kisada had spoken with
earlier, striding in from the gate. Two brown-clad peasants trailed after him, carrying a covered body
on a stretcher. “I beg my lord’s pardon,” he said with a deep bow. “But I searched the battlefield as
you asked. The oni clad in obsidian is dead—found with a hammer buried in its skull.
“Unfortunately, as we moved the oni, we found this body in its grasp.” The samurai walked
over and pulled the sheet back, revealing the still form of the bushi, splattered with the black blood
of the oni. “It seems they gave their own life to kill the beast.”
Kisada walked slowly over, noting for the first time that the crest on the bushi’s helmet was
Hida, that of his own family. The strap that held the mempō in place on the helmet was snapped,
and the daimyō carefully lifted the mask aside. The retainer gasped, and Kisada was deeply grateful
that the man’s exclamation covered his own shock.
“Ah, Hida Tomonatsu,” the samurai said. “She was a promising warrior. Fortune can be
cruel. At least she died well.”
The bushi’s face was still, almost peaceful, eerily young to be clad in such armor, and
splattered with such gore. Kisada looked up to see O-Ushi gazing at him, and for a moment
something in him trembled like the plucked string of a shamisen. He recalled the first moment each
of his children wore armor—Yakamo, nearly popping out of his first set, even at an early age;
Sukune, stumbling under its weight; and O-Ushi, confident as if she was born to wear it.
Confident as Tomonatsu had been when she stood next to him, facing the oni by his side.
“Give her a proper funeral, with all honors,” he heard himself saying, pulling the sheet back
over her as he pulled his wits back together, locking his emotions back under his armor. “She
honored her family, and served her daimyō well.”
The samurai bowed, and he and the peasants shuffled away with Tomonatsu’s body.
Behind him, Kisada heard his children talking—Yakamo and O-Ushi discussing their
respective battles, Sukune speaking to a retainer about finding what jade they could—but the Crab
Clan Champion hardly registered it. Instead, he watched the train of Mudcrows bringing in
casualties: some to the infirmary, shrieking for aid; others to their families to be cleaned and
redressed in simple robes before cremation, their personal effects passed on in accordance with
tradition. Still others were laid out in rows, so infected with the Taint they were to be burned
immediately in the smaller courtyard beyond the parade grounds, where servants ferried logs of
rough-cut cedar for their pyres. For long moments, he beheld the rows of the dead, neat as pieces on

45
a game board. The most corrupted of them would be burned in their armor, leaving nothing to send
back to their families but a note of thanks and regret. It would not be on a paper so fine as the
Emperor’s, but it would mean something. To the Crab, at least.
Hida Kisada’s eyes finally moved upward, following the plumes of dark smoke—on both
sides of the Wall, fed by the bodies of enemy and ally alike—snaking like black fingers up into the
sky.
How much smoke would it take for the Emperor to act? Or would all of Rokugan have to be
aflame for his majesty to notice?

46
A week later, in the Phoenix lands to the east...

Tsukune was midstride across the threshold of the forest shrine before she realized her mistake. She
winced as her right foot touched the blessed ground on the other side of the torii arch before her left.
Before her peers and in the home of her ancestors, she’d barged into her family’s shrine like a Lion.
When they had both progressed beyond the entrance, Tsukune whispered to the man
matching her stride. “I did it again.”
“No one noticed,” Tadaka replied. “Just keep going.”
Tsukune tucked her hands into her kimono sleeves and matched her pace with that of her
charge, keeping their place in the wordless procession of topknots, Shiba family mon, and creamy
white obi. Their path was a winding upward twist of stone steps and fiery torii arches. The crisp
breeze stirred the sloping glades of pink moss to either side, sweeping up their petals to scatter along
the way. It was a blessing in the unseasonable spring warmth, even as it painted the temple arches
with thick coats of pollen.
Tadaka whispered prayers while he walked, passing a string of beads between his large
hands, one jade orb at a time. He towered a full head above the rest, his elaborate layered kimono
making his broad back into a lone banner for the Isawa family. In each backward glance he drew
from the others, Tsukune saw eyes brightening with respect. Those cast at her, she could not read.
At the top of the stairs, their path finally opened into the stone temple courtyard. A mortuary
tablet still stood at its center, but the other trappings of the previous day’s funeral had long since
been cleared away. The procession poured into the courtyard, the Shiba samurai dividing themselves

47
into small groups as they awaited their turns in the sprawling two-story honden. Tsukune ladled
water onto her hands and forearms, then yielded the blessed waters to the next in line. She left the
smothering crowd to gaze into the nearby reflection pool, where shrine maidens fished fallen peach
blossoms off its surface. In the wavering mirror at her feet, a seventeen-summers girl looked back
at her.
“You’re obsessing,” remarked Tadaka, appearing at the pool beside her.
“I cannot make such mistakes,” she whispered. “Not here. If I err during tonight’s
ceremony—”
“No one will notice,” he reassured her. “They will be too busy watching themselves to care
about you. Well,” he added, “except for the ladies. They will be watching me.”
Her mouth twitched upward. “I’ll bet you truly believe that.”
They stood in silence, watching the miko work: the steady dipping of the net into the glossy
pond and the ceremonious sweeping of the stone rim, interwoven with the singing of nightingales.
“You know,” Tadaka said, “if either of us should worry about tonight, it would be me.”
“That would be a first,” Tsukune replied.
“Exactly.” Tadaka smiled.
The wind shook the white-pink canopy, releasing a cascade of blossoms and filtered light.
His eyes twinkled at the shrine maidens’ distress as the flowers scattered around him. “When the
breeze steals the peach tree’s flowers, it appears spontaneous. But in fact, it was a planned event.
That the breeze would come, that the tree would be here, that the petals should fall just so... These
things were determined at the time of its birth. In light of this, what sense is there in worrying?”
“That seems fatalistic,” Tsukune said.
“I take heart in it.” He stepped closer to the pond. Patches of light moved across Tadaka’s
body as they reflected from the water.
“I have seen encouraging signs,” he whispered. “The masters favor me...well, most of them
do.” He chuckled. “Tonight’s ceremony will grant me the clout I need. When they see the wisdom
of my plans, I will go to Crab lands to complete my research. And you will come with me. There,
we will plant the seeds of the future.” He paused, then softly added, “Our future.”
His knuckle grazed hers. In the reflection pool, the girl’s cheeks adopted the shade of the
blooming camellias.
“Do my eyes deceive me, or has Isawa Tadaka-sama come down from his mountain?”

48
 Tsukune stiffened as Tadaka grinned toward the new voice. A bright young man approached
from the courtyard gathering. Above his white obi, imprinted over the chest of his elaborate silks,
was a fiery wing surrounding a naginata, the mon of the Heaven’s Wing.
Tadaka crossed his arms at the newcomer. “Tetsu-san! I was wondering when you would
have the courage to approach me.” They laughed together while Tsukune watched, as a child might
spy on adolescents.
“Congratulations are in order,” Tetsu said. “It is a great honor Master Rujo has bestowed
upon you.”
“I shall endeavor to be worthy of it,” Tadaka replied. “I understand you too will be
participating in the ceremony?”
Tetsu nodded. “Hai. Tonight, I will demonstrate sensei’s additions to the Heaven’s Wing
kata. Although I will certainly fall short of his grace and expertise, I will give my all in honor of his
memory.”
Tsukune looked away as they chatted. Their voices faded into the ambience of the temple
courtyard, a carpeting din of exchanged greetings, shouts of recognition, and steep bows. They were
old, young, and gempuku fresh, more members of the Shiba family than she could recall ever having
seen in one place. Above, the wind stirred the tapestries hanging from the slanted roofs of the stages
used for the sacred dance. Gifts from other temples in other provinces, they were like the Shiba
beneath them: vibrant splashes of color amid the gray stone and polished wood of the shrine. All
save for one: a rustic and faded depiction of a waterfall, thrust high above a pine canopy. The column
of stamps in a dry corner told its story: Lion in origin, completed in Phoenix lands. Among the
others, its colors were faded, inexpert, and unbalanced.
Tsukune decided that she liked it. She could relate.
“After all, I must make it up to Tsukune-kun,” Tadaka teased, her name snapping Tsukune
back to attention. Tadaka was perhaps the only person who could call her “kun” and get away with
it. “It is because of my presence that she has no break from her yōjimbō duties, even when all the
others do.”
She shot him a hot glare. A playful smile was his reply.
“Tsukune-san is quite diligent,” Tetsu offered. His soft smile touched his eyes. “It is good
to see you again. You were missed at the Kanto festival. Some others talked, but I assured them you
would have been there if your duties had permitted it.”

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 As she always did when she had no recourse, she merely nodded and replied, “As you say.”

Finally alone in the inner sanctum, Tsukune reverently placed her incense bowl over the hot coals.
Within moments, twin coils of agarwood smoke arose, entwining the marker of the recently
deceased, a lacquered box of ashes displaying a slip of paper. In the hazel candlelight, Tsukune read
the words on its surface: Shiba Ujimitsu, Champion of the Phoenix.
Tsukune held the string of beads just as the miko had shown her. She tried not to think about
what she’d overheard from that miko: that the Phoenix Champion had passed before his time. That
it had strongly affected his brother. Instead, she closed her eyes and lowered her head, whispering
a prayer for the spirit of the deceased.
He’d sat at the head of the banquet hall during the gempuku ceremony at which she had
come of age. She recalled how he had appeared then, his squat frame and plain features mismatched
with his glorious winged kataginu jacket, unfurled broadly as if to take flight. To his right was the
seat belonging to his most promising student, another seat of high honor.
Shiba Tetsu sat there on that day, in the seat she imagined would have otherwise gone to her
brother—had he been alive.
A clatter resounded from outside. The memory faded. Tsukune looked up at the stone statue
of Shiba, the founder of her family. He was kneeling in this depiction. It seemed larger to her now
than ever before. Outside, she heard the chiding of a priestess as she directed the shrine maidens in
preparation for the ceremony.
Just one night. Then she and Tadaka would return to their simple lives. To their future
together.
Quietly, she reached into her white obi and withdrew a thin cloth. Frayed at the edges, no
longer than her forearm, the plain cotton still displayed the cracked mon of her brother’s dojo. Her
fingers clasped the cloth, his tenugui. She released a quiet breath. And for a moment, it was as if he
were here, removing this cloth from his forehead and wrapping it around the tiny scrape on her knee,
smiling at his little sister.
“I will do my best,” she whispered. Above, the stone face of Shiba looked down at her.

In the moonlit courtyard before the shrine, Tetsu’s slender naginata traced the stars with its blade.
It spun in silver arcs around him, not pausing between his steps. Tsukune saw not two entities, man

50
and blade, but one body in a dance of light and steel and emptiness. Encoded into each graceful
gesture was the death of an invisible opponent, each silk-rustling swing a final breath. Tetsu froze,
one foot tucked behind the other knee, balanced on a single leg, spear outthrust. In that moment, he
became a bamboo rod floating on a stream that reflected the sky.
Tetsu placed his weapon on its stand and pressed his forehead to the ground. As he rose, the
courtyard brightened with the afterglow of his performance. The fiery braziers licked moths from
the night air in their jealousy. He returned to his seat, a lone sakura among the gathered maples.
There was none other who could have performed the Heaven’s Wing kata so flawlessly, not
even if Ujimitsu were alive. If the late champion still dwelled in this world, surely it was in the skill
of his highest pupil.
A dull chime raked the sky, signaling the Hour of the Rat. The collective witnesses of the
courtyard turned as one to face the temple entrance. The shrine’s painted doors slid aside. As one,
the Shiba bowed. Among the procession of shrine maidens, priests, and shugenja that silently
entered the courtyard, Tsukune caught the glint of moonlight tracing the edges of a lacquered
palanquin.
Resting on a cypress stand was a curved sword. The detailed feathers intricately carved into
its sheath drew the light of the braziers, glowing crimson and burnished gold. Even from where she
sat, Tsukune could see each pearl set into its manta-skin handle, the untouched ribbons of silk woven
flawlessly around its pommel, and the curved bronze wings that were its tsuba handguard.
Ofushikai. The ancestral sword of the Phoenix, wielded by every Phoenix Clan Champion
since the dawn of the Empire.
The last to leave the shrine were five figures in elaborate silk robes, their winged kataginu
each marked with a different mon of an element captured within a perfect ring. As they entered the
open night, Tsukune recalled the five elements as Tadaka had long ago taught her: Fire, Water, Air,
Earth, and Void. Five natural elements, and one Elemental Master for each.
At last, she spotted Isawa Tadaka as he took his place beside the Master of Earth. Tadaka
looked even more resplendent than before in his ceremonial robes. The empty space in his
backward-cast shadow tugged at her, but she walled her heart against the instinct to join him and
remained in her seat. Only those beloved by the kami could preside over this part of the ceremony.
If he felt odd without Tsukune there, he gave no sign. Towering over his sensei and half his age,
Tadaka was a tall pine beside a withered oak. There were other apprentices as well, one for each

51
Elemental Master. As one, they lowered their heads, lips moving in unison. Their words did not
carry to the crowd, instead rising directly to the Heavens.
Tsukune instinctively felt the weight of another’s gaze. From his seat upon the courtyard
dais, the temporary lord of Shiba Castle looked at her: Shiba Sukazu, former hatamoto of the clan
champion, as well as his brother. The braziers cut faint wrinkles into his face and lit the streak of
silver that adorned his temples. The white of his obi nearly glowed, as did the scroll clutched in his
hands. The final words of Shiba Ujimitsu, his death poem, were enclosed within that scroll.
She froze in his expressionless gaze, the guilt of having met his eyes flooding her face with
heat as she struggled to identify what mistake she had made to draw his attention. But there came
no reprisal from the castle’s lord. He merely nodded, then returned his attention to the ceremony.
She followed suit, head swimming in the wake of her relieved sigh.
The first apprentice to step forward was she who accompanied the Master of Air. Five shrine
maidens surrounded her. The rhythmic sound of taiko drumming filled the clearing. Each thundering
boom was a slap against Tsukune’s heart. As the maidens weaved in an elaborate dance, the shugenja
drew a small conch shell and placed it against her lips. As the sound reverberated throughout the
crowd, a gust of wind raked the canopy, sending down a shower of white peach blossoms. The kami
had accepted the offering.
It was Tadaka’s turn now. With his ceremonial robes and impressive stature, he dominated
the clearing. The shrine maidens shifted their dance. It was heavier now, more centered. Tadaka
held out a ceramic bowl, revealing a verdant sprout within. He rotated through his prayer beads with
the other hand, murmuring inwardly. Slowly at first, then all at once, the sprout parted and bloomed
with white petals.
Tsukune winced as gasps arose from those around her. They swiftly grew quiet again, but
even so, she could imagine the elders’ thoughts about this younger, more unruly generation.
Next was the student of Fire. The sacred dance shifted into lively steps and energetic twists.
The young man drew a candle and offered it with an outward thrust. He closed his eyes and
murmured. The light of the courtyard flickered and grew with each inwardly whispered prayer. The
crowd craned their necks, all eyes on the candlewick.
The student stopped. His eyes opened. Nothing changed. He blinked his confusion. Then
came a loud cry as one of the courtyard tapestries burst into flame.

52
 The crowd swung toward the sudden flash of light. Fire consumed the aged fabric. A gust of
wind tore at the flames, lighting the shrine’s thatched roof ablaze.
Tsukune felt bodies push at her. Screams pierced the night as servants broke from their
stations and ran. Shiba Sukazu rose, but his face did not change. His mouth moved, giving
commands. The assembled samurai burst into action, evacuating the courtyard, fetching water.
Some ran toward the shrine. She realized she was one of them.
The fire greedily peeled off hard strips of lacquer, tossing them aside before biting deep into
the ancient wood beneath. Already it had touched ground, like spilled paint.
The Elemental Masters stood unmoving near the burning shrine. Their illuminated faces
watched the spreading flames with calm interest, as if they were reading a scroll or judging a
painting. Two seemed to exchange words, but Tsukune could not hear them. A piece of smoldering
tile broke against the ground beside the Master of Water. She did not even flinch. And Tadaka
watched among them, the lone remaining student in the courtyard, indistinguishable save for his
massive silhouette.
Tsukune ran to his side and found her breath. She seized his arm. “Tadaka-sama! It’s too
dangerous. Come with me.”
“No!” Tadaka’s uncharacteristic bark froze the blood in Tsukune’s veins. He spun, eyes
glowing, his outline traced in orange light. “Forget me! The inner shrine! The library!” Genealogies,
prayers, star maps, incantations. Priceless knowledge. Irreplaceable.
Someone ran past her. As she turned toward the shrine, she glimpsed Shiba Tetsu, his
resplendent silks fluttering with his dash. As he leaped into the flaming shrine, his face was that of
a man at peace. And then he was gone, swallowed up by the light.
She followed. The heat pricked her flesh and tears fell from her stinging eyes, but she pushed
forward toward the inner sanctum, where Tetsu must have gone. All was blazing yellow light or
iron-black smoke. She could not continue. Spinning around, she saw no exit. Only a few steps away,
her path was curtained with flames. Should they be so fast? She remembered her brother’s tenugui
and pulled it from her obi. Pressing it to her face and sucking air through the fabric, she crouched
low beneath the smoke and looked for options.
Above the fire’s din, she heard a desperate voice. “Help us, please!” It came from the side
room that had once been the administrative office. There, she found two servants and a shrine

53
maiden. One servant was pinned beneath burning furniture, the other calling for help. The miko just
stared as flames cascaded down the walls.
Tsukune slammed the case of shelves with her shoulder. It rocked, but it did not budge. The
cloth fell from her hands as she pushed. The shrine maiden, snapped out of her trance, appeared by
her side and did the same. Together they forced the case away. Tsukune did not have to look at the
man’s leg to know it would be no use to him.
A river of smoke rolled above them. Tsukune searched for an exit and found none—none
but the flame-licked wall before her: a wooden frame, thick paper, and thin plaster.
“This way!” she shouted, and with all of her strength, she threw herself against it.
The heat seared her cheek, and the flames curled around her. But the paper wall broke,
tearing a jagged hole into the shrine’s garden. She fell into a bush and rolled into a facedown pile.
Behind her, the miko led the limping servants out of the burning portal and into the night.
Tsukune started to rise, but froze. She was at the feet of a man in grand ceremonial robes,
his shadow splayed behind him like unfurled wings. The mon of the Elemental Master of Fire
beamed proudly on his chest. He stared into the flames, hands pressed tight against a long string of
amber beads. His face was stone serious, yet prayers tumbled out in his rising voice in a tone that
was almost pleading. He twisted his palms. The string snapped with a loud pop, scattering beads to
the ground.
By the time the final bead fell, the last of the shrine’s flames were extinguished. The Master
closed his eyes and whispered, “Thank you, kami of flame, for accepting this gift.”
Tsukune watched curling trails of smoke rise from a prayer bead lying inches from her face.

The next moments flooded quickly by as the Phoenix Clan samurai took stock of the damage. The
honden fared better than it had seemed. Thanks to Shiba Sukazu’s commands and the expertise of
the Master of Fire, the flames had never reached the inner sanctum, nor the holy-of-holies. One third
of the outer structure was destroyed, but the remaining sections had not collapsed. Other than a
broken shimenawa rope now emptied of its hosted spirit, relatively little of importance was lost. The
shrine maidens would begin floating lanterns down the babbling stream to guide the lost spirit back
to the shrine while a new blessed rope was prepared. The priests gave offerings in the hope that the
shrine’s state would not offend those remaining. In time, these scars would heal.

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 Some Shiba stepped out of the shrine. They carried artifacts, documents, and a hearth’s worth
of ashes and burns. Seeing herself in the reflection pool, Tsukune noted she had fared no better.
Dark smudges marked her cheeks and forehead, and her dark-brown hair was now black and stiff.
Her good kimono was flame-licked, stained, and sooted. She frowned and smacked the ash from her
sleeves.
Then she looked back through the hole she’d torn in the shrine wall. Beyond the yawning
portal stretched a black layer of charcoal petals and wisps of smoke. She stared at the place where
she recalled having dropped her brother’s cloth. Now it was like him: only scattered ash, nothing of
him left in this world.
“Tsukune!”
The voice was Tetsu’s. He was with the Elemental Masters, returning the pine box of
Ujimitsu’s ashes, which he had rescued from the flames. A cache of ancient scrolls peeked from a
satchel slung around his immaculate kimono. He approached Tsukune, eyes wide with concern.
Although he smelled of smoke, he hadn’t even the faintest hint of ash or burn.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You shouldn’t just leap into a burning building like that,
Tsukune-san!”
She just stared at him, charred and sooty, like a bird with singed wings.

“Come with us,” whispered the Master of Fire as he stepped beside Tadaka. “You need to hear this.”
Tadaka nodded, following the Master of Fire to the cabal of Elemental Masters to ensure
their words would be private. He stood beside his sensei, Isawa Rujo, the Master of Earth, and
ignored the older man’s disapproving eyes.
“Your student has accepted full responsibility, Tsuke-sama,” said Rujo.
The Fire Master’s frown deepened. “It is a shame that I must dismiss him. He showed great
promise.”
“It cannot be helped,” Rujo replied. “We must preserve face and prevent a panic. He is noble
to have done what is necessary.”
“Even so,” murmured the Master of Fire.
“It has gotten...worse,” breathed the decrepit Master of Air. He leaned on a jade-studded
cane and struggled over a few breaths while the others waited. “We cannot...keep waiting for the
imbalance...to correct itself. We must...become directly...involved.”

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 The Master of Water nodded. Her face was hidden behind twin waterfalls of black hair
cascading from her cone-shaped hat. “Even a pebble will cause ripples. The other clans will soon
have questions. Better that the Phoenix provide the answers.”
“Perhaps it would be wiser to temporarily suspend the ceremony,” Rujo suggested. “The
destruction of the shrine is an ill omen.”
One by one, they turned to the Master of Void. Isawa Ujina had already drawn a circle on
the ground. Rising, he reached into one of his many pouches, procuring a handful of polished stones.
As the others watched, he tossed them into the circle. Then he squatted beside it and studied the
stones with a deeply furrowed brow.
Tadaka stepped forward. “Father?”
“The ceremony must continue.” Ujina looked back. “The Phoenix Clan needs a champion.”

Tsukune took her place in the ring of Shiba. To her right stood Tetsu, eyes reverently lowered. Even
Shiba Sukazu joined the circle. They all stood together, shoulder by shoulder, with the Master of
Void at the center. In the Master’s hands rested the ancestral sword of the Phoenix.
“Ofushikai,” the Ujina spoke, “We humbly beg you, reveal to us your chosen.” Then, he
turned to the man directly before him and bowed, extending his arms and offering the sword.
Shiba Sukazu received it with a lowered head. He held it for a few moments while the others
watched. Ujina rose. From her position on the other side of the circle, Tsukune detected relief in
Sukazu’s smile.
Sukazu turned to the Shiba at his right and offered the blade. It was accepted. The samurai
held the blade, but when nothing happened, he bowed his head and offered it again. The blade passed
from one Shiba to the next, slowly and reverently, beneath the ever-present eyes of the Void Master.
Tsukune glanced at Tetsu and caught his concerned look. He smiled reassuringly at her. She
returned the expression. The mon of the Heaven’s Wing and the personal chop of Shiba Ujimitsu
on his shoulders both glowed in the moonlight coating his flawless kimono.
It will be you, Tetsu-sama, she thought. Her smile broadened. As it should be.
She bowed when the sword came. It was lighter than the sword of her mother, as if the sheath
were empty. For fleeting moments, she watched the moonlight dance along the edges of the bronze
handguard and the exquisite pearls inlaid on the sword’s hilt. The sheath was exquisitely carved
from a single piece of wood, as if real feathers had simply petrified around the blade. She couldn’t

56
find a single flaw. The ancient sword lacked the drastic curve of a true katana and the benefits of
modern smithing, yet it looked and felt as though it had just been forged. This would be the only
time she would ever hold this sword. She held her breath to make the moment last just a little longer.
She turned to Tetsu. The greatest honor will be passing Ofushikai to you, Tetsu-sama.
The sword jutted out from the sheath, exposing one inch of flawless blade.
Isawa Ujina gasped. Tsukune froze. From the circle arose whispers and exchanged glances.
Across the ring, Sukazu smiled. Tsukune looked to Tetsu. His eyes were wide saucers. Like hers.
“It has chosen!” Ujina announced. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. He locked her
gaze, smiling, clasping her arms. “It is you, Shiba Tsukune, Champion of the Phoenix!”
Not even the chirps of nocturnal frogs filled the silence befalling the courtyard. Tsukune
wanted to shatter it, to tell them it was a mistake. She couldn’t be the one. It wasn’t possible.
But to contradict the Master of Void was unthinkable. So instead, she lowered her head, and
her voice finally returned. “As you say.” She knelt before the Isawa and swore to serve.

Tsukune was alone in the inner sanctum. Moonlight fell in thick shafts through burned holes in the
ceiling. They painted her new winged kataginu in silver patches. In her obi rested the map of Shiba
Castle and the surrounding province—her new home. She considered lighting incense before the
statue of Shiba and the shrine to Ujimitsu, but the notion twisted her gut. This place already smelled
of burnt cypress and ash. Were Tadaka here, she would let him light the incense so as not to offend
the present spirits. But Tadaka was not here. And after tomorrow, when he returned to his duties,
she would remain behind.
She looked down at Ofushikai as it rested in her hands, feeling its weight and the grooves of
its carved sheath. Her clumsy hands against the flawless sword were calloused, rough, and dirty.
Not like the graceful hands of Shiba Tetsu, hands that had never even had the chance to touch this
blade. Now they never would.
In the moment after she was chosen, his eyes were dim and he’d barely concealed a frown.
When the blade jutted from its sheath, had it been extending itself to him?
A rapid breath came. Then another. Then a constant stream of them. Her chest tightened as
cold hands squeezed her heart. She was drowning. She was burning. She fell upward through the
yawning gap of the ceiling. Clouds covered the moon. Thoughts spilled out of her mind like an
overfull cup. It’s a mistake. You shouldn’t be here. It’s wrong. This is all wrong.

57
 A gentle weight on her shoulder. Eyes opening. The shrine was still here. She was still here.
There was a floor beneath her feet and moonlight filtering through the ceiling. Fireflies had come
into the shrine. They flashed, suspended in the air, blinking into and out of existence. Outside, the
wind stirred the trees. Inside, all was still.
Tsukune still felt something on her shoulder, a light touch resting, but there was nothing
there. She curled her fingers around Ofushikai’s handle and, after a moment, drew the sword
halfway from its sheath. In the reflection of its mirrored blade, she saw the face of a seventeen-
summers girl.
And behind her, the face of Ujimitsu. Gone were his weathered wrinkles and his glorious
winged kataginu. He wore simple rustic garb and the hint of a smile. His hand rested on her shoulder.
Beyond him were dozens of Phoenix warriors. Old, young, female, and male, their clothes ranging
from recent to antique, they filled the chamber, their glowing bodies filtering the light of the moon
and casting no shadows. Generations of Phoenix Clan Champions, all standing with her, all offering
that same subtle smile.
A thought came in a voice that was not hers, yet sounded so familiar. You will never be
alone, Tsukune.
She sheathed the blade and released a silent breath.
“I will do my best,” she whispered. Above, the stone face of Shiba smiled upon her.

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Far to the west, in Unicorn lands...

Courtiers in a rainbow of gleaming, elegant robes bowed gracefully as she passed, like flowers
overburdened by dew. She smiled, her thoughts focusing not on the courtiers but instead on the
celebration around them and the riders in the field.
Scimitars clashed beneath the bright sun, the finely honed edges of their dancing blades
flashing prismatic light about the courtyard. Two samurai dressed in the purple and white of the
Unicorn Clan fought on a verdant green swath, their display of swordsmanship drawing the attention
of the surrounding courtiers, performers, and children alike. Between the waving fans and soft
laughter, jugglers gamed, musicians played, and riders performed feats of athletics on the backs of
magnificent, prancing steeds.
It was a special day, a festival day. The palace—with its grey slate and whitewashed lumber,
stiff and proud—was bedecked with flowers and colorful emblems of purple and white to celebrate
the occasion. A warm wind blew banners like candle flames flickering above the curled awnings.
Shinjo Altansarnai walked down the central pathway of the castle grounds, wearing close-
fitting trousers suited for riding along with a purple keikogi top folded in elaborate ripples over an
underrobe of silver and gold. Whereas others wore their swords through their obi belts, Altansarnai’s
curved weapon hung in a sheath from a frog by her side, and a knife hilt glittered above the top of
her boot.

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 “Shinjo-sama,” a guest spoke, a Crane courtier with an ever-flickering fan. “Congratulations
on your upcoming wedding.” His soft-blue robes were the color of the summer sky, and his white
hair hung down below his waist, braided throughout with gold and silver cords.
She granted the Crane a thin smile of thanks, continuing toward the edge of the riding arena.
Before she could answer, a display of magic in the courtyard caught their attention. There, a Unicorn
shugenja raised her hands, calling on ancient names in the manner of meishōdō. She held aloft two
small ivory carvings, which were older than living memory. As she called upon the talismans in a
gentle, reverent voice, they glowed in reddish tones. Dark tendrils of magic coiled about, illuminated
by inner fireworks that shifted and played amid the rippling darkness. Around the edges of the field,
Unicorn samurai applauded in appreciation. The rest of the courtiers fell silent, eyes shifting away
from the display, their fans rising like a winter breeze.
“Such magic... it is an unusual display. We, of the Empire, are not used to seeing the spirits
treated so,” the courtier said cautiously.
Of course, the strict traditionalists would balk at the Unicorn’s unusual ways. “The name-
magic of meishōdō is the tradition of our people.” The Crane quailed, but Altansarnai did not pause.
“No matter what the Phoenix shugenja say, it is ours to master and ours to control.”
“But your clan has been here for more than two hundred years,” the Crane pressed gently.
“Surely such dangerous traditions can be left behind?”
The horses rode in circles, pacing their strides in unison as riders stood upon their backs.
With a shout, the Unicorn performers leapt from one steed to another, exchanging places to the
delight of the audience. Their breeches caught the wind, blowing tightly against their legs as they
danced a-horseback. Curved scimitars sliced thrown oranges in two, leaving the fruit neatly severed
by the side of the circle track.
“Look there,” she said to the Crane. “Do you see the curved blades our samurai use?” She
raised a hand and pointed. “Those blades served their parents, their grandparents, and their ancestors
before them. They are as sacred as your katana, and more durable. Yes, we could learn to use a
straight blade, but that is not who we are. That is not what we offer to the Emperor. The Ki-Rin, our
ancestors, were sent to learn about the world outside Rokugan. We were to be an unorthodox surprise
against the Empire’s opponents in the Shadowlands. While we were on our travels, we chose to
adopt new ways. New traditions. We blended those with the culture we brought from the Empire.
Old steel, newly forged.

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 “Even though we are in Rokugan, many among us still choose to fight with curved swords,
because our mastery of them is valuable. We carry our past forward, unifying it with the new. We
remember the things we learned on our travels, and those lessons make us valuable to the Emperor.
“The Unicorn don’t leave anything behind, Doji-san. Particularly anything that makes us
strong, or has saved our lives as often as meishōdō. The Empire will simply have to embrace
pragmatism. It will have to accept our curved swords.”
“And will you carry these traditions with you when you marry into the Lion Clan, Shinjo-
sama?” the Crane queried.
There was no reason to let his ignorance disrupt the beauty of the day, so Altansarnai merely
replied with the sharpest of glares.
Just then, a figure across the paddock strode out of the shadows. A man, his long, dark hair
pulled back into a tight knot of braids, smiled and bowed respectfully. Iuchi Daiyu. As he rose to
meet her gaze, the world slowed around them. Altansarnai could not stop a shy smile from lighting
her face. Nearly twenty years of companionship, and he could still make her feel like a girl being
courted.
“Mother!” A samurai on the field waved, breaking the moment. Altansarnai waved in return.
Shinjo Shono, her youngest son, rode his charger, his armor shining, its purple-lacquered slats
woven together with silver cord. Shono was a favorite with the courtiers: young, forthright, and
eager—but obedient to his mother and faithful to his clan.
“You must be very proud.” The Crane smiled.
“I am proud. My three children have grown strong in Imperial lands. Through a thousand
lives, our clan has struggled to find our home—and we have found it here, in Rokugan. My children
are a sign of the past and the future combined. Our past, as Ki-Rin, and our future, as Unicorn.”
“True, Lady Shinjo Altansarnai.” The courtier’s voice stammered slightly over the foreign
syllables of her name. “And I wish you well as you bow to that future.”
Nodding politely, she turned her shoulder and looked out at the field. Shinjo Shono stood
first on one leg and then on the other, his horse cantering gently along below him. Riding in a circle
around the enclosure, he lanced hoops with a spear. To the side, her other children—Haruko and
Yasamura—cheered on their younger brother with loud cries of joy.

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 “Altansarnai-sama!” Altansarnai jumped slightly. The voice was loud, brash, and too close
for her liking, but then again, no one had ever accused Utaku Kamoko of having much decorum.
“Can you come with me?”
Altansarnai turned to regard her friend. “Kamoko-san.” She nodded. Something was wrong.
“Of course.”
Back across the field, Iuchi Daiyu placed a foot into his stirrup and lunged onto his steed.
Altansarnai sighed. There would be time for enjoying the day later. She turned away from
the festivities and followed the younger samurai into the castle.
The throne room of the Unicorn Clan was small for its type, rarely used and pristinely clean.
It held a dais with resplendent purple pillows, a place for the champion’s battle armor, and in an
alcove, a stand displaying a variety of cavalry weapons arrayed like flowers. These were old
trophies, kept for centuries after their wielders had been defeated. Some were ancient Rokugani
weapons; the rest came from foreign lands, from desert sands to towering mountains—all the places
her clan had roamed during their time away from the Emerald Empire. The weapons were stories,
once told with pride but now vestiges of a wandering freedom that set her people, the children of
the wind, apart. Guards in white and purple stiffened in respect as Altansarnai entered the room.
Their eyes were downcast, hands ready on their weapons, prepared for any movement from the
figure in the center of the room.
There, kneeling on the floor between two guards, was a woman dressed all in funerary white.
Altansarnai walked to the dais and settled herself upon the tatami mat, her legs folding in a
gentle movement.
“This is Asako Akari of the Phoenix Clan. She was found in one of the gardens. With these,”
Kamoko explained, drawing a small white-handled dagger from her belt and tossing it to the floor
in front of the woman, along with a length of pure-white cord. The weapon landed with a clatter,
steel glinting in the sunlight through the windows.
“A jigai blade?” Altansarnai frowned. Jigai, a form of seppuku, was practiced by non-
warriors, those of noble blood but no military training. The rope, too, was part of the ceremony, as
were the snow-white robes worn by the person seeking death.
Kamoko was a thundercloud, glowering over the captive. Altansarnai waved her back. “She
is no danger, Kamoko-san. Let her speak.”

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 Slowly, haltingly, Asako Akari murmured, “I wish to commit jigai in protest of your
wedding.” She raised her chin, a faint tremble appearing on her soft lips. The woman was only
slightly younger than Altansarnai, and lovely in a quiet, composed sort of manner. Next to Kamoko,
she seemed like a bird near a tiger, waiting to be eaten alive. “I... have the right to do so.”
“Protest.” Altansarnai remembered the recent news. “I have heard there are protests in the
Lion lands. Even with a dowry of Unicorn battle steeds, the Lion are loath to see one of their
respected samurai marry a Shinjo. I expected trouble from them. I did not expect it from the
Phoenix.”
We, of the Empire, are not used to seeing the spirits treated so. The Phoenix were even more
opposed to the Unicorn Clan’s magic. Had the Phoenix allowed this jigai because they wanted to
humiliate the Unicorn? It was possible.
The woman shivered. “I wish only to give my life as my ancestors would will it, sacrificing
for that which was taken from me.”
“Taken from you?” Altansarnai snapped. “I am the one abdicating my position as champion
to join this union. I am the one leaving behind my lands, my family, my...” Iuchi Daiyu smiling, his
long, dark braids spilling delicately over his shoulder. “I am the one placing everything behind so
that there may be peace. But you say we have taken something from you?”
Bowing her head, the Asako responded, “You have, great champion, though you do not
know it.”
Now, that was curious. Pressing the issue, Altansarnai asked, “Tell me your tale?”
“I was once Ikoma Akari, married to Lord Ikoma Anakazu, daimyō of the Ikoma family. For
many years, we had been one household. We have a daughter—but now, for his clan and his duty,
he has been ordered to put us aside.” The Asako’s voice gained strength in the telling. “You may
believe that I dislike you, my lady. I do not. It is not your foreign ways nor your strange magic that
send me to death on this day. It is love. I cannot live without him. Because he has divorced me, I
will die in protest.”
This woman was brazen, speaking her mind to a champion. “What do I care? Your woes are
not mine. Yet, I would not see a life wasted. Can you not continue as you are, without the title? Ours
is a political union, not a love match.”

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 “No.” Akari shook her head. Her eyes dimmed, and she bowed low to the floor, pressing her
head and her hands against the shining floorboards. “Anakazu-sama is a man of great duty and
loyalty. He will be faithful to his wife—any wife.”
“And does he love you?” Love was not part of the samurai code—only duty. Still, the
woman’s tale surprised her. How had she not been told of this?
“He does.”
A fragile stillness came upon the room.
Was this some devious Scorpion’s trick? If the woman committed jigai, especially here on
Unicorn lands, Altansarnai would be dishonored. The wedding would be considered unlucky in the
eyes of the Fortunes. “Now that I know this, I must act. You realized that, of course?”
“This is my fate,” the Asako murmured regretfully. “It is the only blow I can strike. For
myself. For my daughter. It is to my great shame that I was discovered before I could complete my
task.”
“I told you this wedding was ill-favored.” Kamoko glowered. “Three years we have worked
toward a peace with the Lion, only to have them demand an outcome that puts her aside. What has
she done wrong? Nothing.”
Altansarnai shifted in her seat. The woman’s choice of action had been brave, though ill
considered. Death would not reunite her with her husband. “Kamoko-san. A wedding with Ikoma
Anakazu is the only way to bring peace with the Lion Clan. If the Lion have chosen to end Anakazu’s
marriage, then that is their champion’s choice.” It was disturbing to think about, but necessary.
Divorces weren’t unheard-of, though they inevitably dishonored one party or the other.
“Even if it means her death.”
“According to the Rokugani, her death means nothing.”
“It means everything. She has committed no crime, performed no dishonor. Yet we rob a
wife of her husband, her child of a mother. Were we not taught that family is to be honored? That
life is sacred?”
“Here, in Rokugan—”
“In Rokugan, they cling to outdated customs, and they destroy lives.” The Utaku shook her
head, long hair shimmering in the sunlight. “This woman is willing to die for her family. Are you
not willing to live for yours? Iuchi Daiyu-sama—”

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 “Enough!” At the very sound of the name, Altansarnai felt heat rise in her cheeks. Her voice
was as loud as a clarion call, echoing from the corners of the room. Altansarnai took a moment to
compose herself, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead with one hand. “Enough,” she said more
gently, meeting Kamoko’s eyes. “Daiyu-sama is the father of my heirs and my partner. In loyalty,
he supports this union. I have not put him aside.”
“He supports you, Altansarnai-sama. Not the wedding.” Kamoko said in measured tones.
Altansarnai and Daiyus’s relationship was no one’s business but their own—it was partly
why they had never formally married. That, and the complications of marriage between the clan
champion and a family daimyō. Still, was she being unfaithful to Daiyu? Trying to ignore her
discomfort, she gazed at the tableau before her with a measuring eye. “Duty, love—they cannot
always exist together. We must choose, and for my clan’s sake, I must choose peace. The contract
is signed. We must keep our end of the deal.” She sighed at the end, adding, “What else can we do,
Kamoko? We have been through this argument before.”
“It is not peace if you are a prisoner! When you agreed, you did not know he would set aside
his wife like a coward, and you did not know...”
A silence fell over the room, broken only by Akari’s soft tears. Faltering, Kamoko spoke
again. “These Lion! For centuries, the Ki-Rin wandered, facing dangers alone. Our clan fought and
bled, struggled, and eventually returned home—only to be treated like outsiders! Our sacrifice has
not been recognized. Our strength has not been respected. The Lion still refuse to acknowledge our
ancestral lands; they try to claim them at every opportunity! They kill our parents, our siblings, over
petty concerns of pride.
“On our own, far from home, the Ki-Rin Clan came to respect the sanctity of life. Seppuku
was all but unheard-of, and punishments, while cruel, were rarely to the death. We needed every
sword we could muster simply to survive.
“Our clan has returned and rediscovered our homeland. As the Unicorn, we protect Rokugan,
but to remain here, we are asked to forget what we have learned and become like all the others. That
is not who we are. We must not set aside the lessons of the wandering Ki-Rin. Not for the Lion. Not
for anyone.”
“Great champion,” Asako Akari looked up from the floor hesitantly. “It is true: I do not
understand your ways. I do not know why I am still alive to speak with you, instead of having been
killed for my boldness. I cannot live without Anakazu-sama.” She breathed deeply. “There is no

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place for me in this world, without my family. Therefore, I beg you—either kill me, or do not marry
Anakazu-sama.” Bushidō should have prevented the Phoenix from asking such a thing. Akari
dishonored herself with the words, disobeying her family and betraying her honor. The woman’s
statement cost her much to say aloud, but her boldness did not change the facts.
“You have no right to ask that of me.”
“Perhaps she does not.” Kamoko slowly lowered herself to her knees. “But I do.
“The Unicorn Clan respects Bushidō’s tenets, but the long years of travel taught us that
practicality means survival. You are bound by your word, by your sense of honor—but you are
ignoring what is right.” Kamoko spoke passionately, her dark eyes flashing. “Mighty champion, if
I were to ask my daimyō to reconsider her plans of marriage, would she listen to me?”
“Kamoko-san,” Altansarnai shook her head. “The Lion and the Unicorn are already agreed.
If I do not marry him, the clan will suffer a great loss of honor. That failure may well lead to war.”
Her arms fell to her sides, the purple sleeves of her formal keikogi brushing the first knuckle of her
hand. “The Lion offered this marriage as a means of finding peace. We give them a dowry of horses;
they remove their claim from our southernmost lands.”
“The Lion tricked us! You did not know the cost. If you marry him, you leave the clan, and
we lose a great leader. We agreed to this marriage before we knew you would become his trophy.
Before we knew that by Ikoma custom, the wife takes the husband’s name and joins his lands. We
did not ask for him to join your house because we did not know we needed to. It is no loss of face
to claim the deal has changed, and if that saves this woman’s life, then all the better.”
Altansarnai paused. Kamoko’s arguments were sharp, and felt raw on account of her temper,
but the woman was not wrong. Still, she was not thinking of duty—only of practicality. What of the
possibility of a war with the Lion? Should she not accept the tradition of Rokugan and do her duty?
Leave behind the traditions of her people in order to ease the tensions with another clan? To avoid
war, she was considering giving up her future.
The Unicorn don’t leave anything behind.
Curved swords. It was a matter of using curved swords—finding a way to incorporate
Unicorn practicality into the traditions of the Empire. Sometimes, things needed to be changed in
order to become stronger. Hadn’t that been the Ki-Rin’s purpose? To find strength outside the
Empire, and bring it home to empower Rokugan? This wedding was based on old traditions:
traditions the Unicorn had not known to contradict. Now they were trapped, and the clan would

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suffer. “The Lion will not see it that way,” she said at last. “They will only see that tradition has not
been followed.”
“Then we are as helpless and ill-fated as she. Marry him, and your spirit will die. Do not,
and your honor may die instead. Either way, there is blood on your blade. This woman’s tantōasks
us—which shall we follow: spirit or duty?” said Kamoko. “Our ancestors left the Empire seeking
the answer to that question. We returned with the only answer that makes sense: freedom. The
freedom to choose between the two.”
“Do you think I am giving up that freedom?”
“You would not choose this for yourself. You say the clan needs this—we do not need this!
Our horses are swift and our swords are true. We could defeat the Lion!” The words echoed in the
chamber for a long, crisp moment, tension darkening the sunlit day. Kamoko flushed, clearly
embarrassed by her outburst. “I am sorry, my champion. I should not have...”
Passion was clear on Kamoko’s face—too much passion. But she was right, and Altansarnai
couldn’t argue any further. The feeling was like a stone, sinking into her belly. If she made this
choice, she opened the Unicorn up to a thousand political games. The image of the needling Crane
courtier rose in her mind, and Altansarnai frowned. “You are right. It is a choice. But it is not a
choice between spirit and honor. It is a choice between the future and the past. Rokugan must be
brought into the future, by whatever means necessary.”
Altansarnai closed her eyes. The wedding was political, meant to bring peace between the
clans. Yet it could not come at the cost of all that the Ki-Rin—the Unicorn—Clan had learned and
become. And the Lion would have to learn to respect the Unicorn ancestral lands, once and for all.
“You are right.” Altansarnai repeated, fingering the hilt of the scimitar at her waist. “The
tradition of Rokugan is not the law of Rokugan. I refuse to have my place taken from me over
something not in the terms of our arrangement. I agreed to marriage. I did not agree to give up my
name and my standing. We must draw attention to the distinction.” Ringing a bell, she summoned
a messenger into the room. He paused upon seeing the woman in white on her knees before the
champion, but was savvy enough to say nothing and seem utterly undisturbed. Altansarnai said,
“Draft a letter to the Ikoma ambassador and the Lion Clan. Tell them that I no longer approve the
Lion offer of marriage. I withdraw my hand, and no dowry will be paid.” The messenger bowed and
scurried away.

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 Altansarnai rose, prompting the soldiers in the room to bow in unison. Kamoko leaned
forward as well, head gracefully dipping in respect. The Asako bowed lowest of all, face pressed
into the floorboards at Altansarnai’s feet.
“Ikoma Akari-san. Rise. Your life is spared. Leave these lands forever. Return to your
husband, and give your renewed marriage my blessing. You are free to go.”
Kamoko blinked, her eyes narrowing. Nevertheless, she stepped aside, allowing the Asako
to climb gracefully to her feet. Akari, breathless with joy, wasted no time with her dismissal,
gathering herself and half-fleeing while tears still stained her cheeks.
“Kamoko-san. Carry word personally to the Emperor. This steed will not be broken to rein
and saddle, nor will I compromise my clan in the name of peace. If the Lion truly want war, then
they will come for it—and would have, marriage or no marriage. But if they do, they will find that
free horses are worth ten times a chained mountain cat.
“Only if the Emperor himself demands it will I change my mind. Let him command me—or
let me remain as I am, in his service alone.”
Utaku Kamoko bowed low, her long tail of hair sweeping over her shoulders with the motion.
“So shall it be, my champion.”
Altansarnai rose to walk toward the window, looking down at the riders below. She smiled
to see them racing upon green grasses as though they hadn’t a care in the world—only joy. As she
watched, hooves tore the sod, and manes and tails blew in fierce winds, winds that came from
mountains and deserts and lands far away. “Let the past stay the past,” she said. “I will take the
shame they offer.
“Despite their adherence to old ways and constraining traditions, we will bring the Empire
forward, into the realm of the possible. We will teach its people our strength—and we will show
them our duty.” Eyes alight, she walked past Kamoko and the guards, toward the field and the horses
beyond.
“We will teach them how to fight with curved blades.”

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“Are you ready?”
“Yes, sensei.”
Isawa Atsuko rapped the youth’s knees with a bamboo stick, and he stiffened with pain.
Nobu showed great promise, but his sensei had to keep him grounded.
“No, sensei,” he corrected himself. “I am not ready.”
“Better. You are not prepared, not truly, to witness the Void. We must retrain your vision,
so that you may learn to see without sight—strengthen your will, so that you do not lose your very
self in the Realm of Void.”
The initiate nodded and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, in a calm and focused pattern,
centering himself in this moment. Atsuko settled into a meditative pose beside the initiate. Her knees
complained, and the room was too hot, but she would move past the ache and discomfort soon.
“Let the sounds of the temple reach you and move past you.” She opened her ears and called
attention to the current of the world. “Hear the muffled patter of shuffling feet rising and fading,
rising and fading, the wind rustling through the pines, the birds chirping in their branches...”
They continued like this for some time, and Nobu’s breathing slowed even further. Others
conversed in low tones elsewhere in the complex. A gust of wind surged, and a branch creaked.
Faintly, the waterfall beyond the compound tumbled into the pool below. Her apprentice would
perceive the river for himself, now, and allow his ego to gently drift away. Atsuko allowed herself
to do the same.
Minutes passed, perhaps hours. She stood against the coursing river, serving as an anchor
for her charge, when a faraway knot pulled her taut like twisted silk.

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 Something is wrong. Nobu-kun, leave now.
She waited until her apprentice had surfaced. Satisfied that he was safe, she searched for that
constricted feeling, pulled against it, and followed it to its source, flowing against the stream of
space and time.
Eyes closed, Atsuko reached for her scrying bowl. Where the mortal mind struggled to
comprehend the churn of the Void, the sacred metal could capture fleeting images on the surface of
the water within. The chill of emptiness cascaded over her hands, as though she were holding a bowl
of mountain snow. She opened her eyes and peered within.
The purple and fur robes of a rider on horseback.
A carven antler flashing silver.
Wings of gold unfurling, a gleaming ruby glow between them, cracking in two.
The sun and moon trading places along the horizon, plunging the world into darkness.
That darkness pooled within the bowl, writhing and seething, twisting, growing darker and
longer into a shadowy form. Where its feet touched the earth, blood ran like a river, coursing
through rivers and mountains and plains. The creature followed the blood, and in its wake darkness
spread, like a cloud blotting out the sun.
East—it was heading east. Toward the rising sun, toward the dawn-radiant Imperial Palace.
Fear struck like debris in a swollen river. She cast about for a handhold and pulled herself
out of the torrent. She cried out as her consciousness slammed back into her arching body and both
tumbled backward. The bowl clanged to the floor.
As she pulled herself up, Nobu was retching. The disturbance—it must have resonated in
her ill-prepared student as well. For the Void to have washed over him, even when I had sent him
out...
Soft wails rose up around them from elsewhere in the complex, confirming her fears. She
had to make contact with Master Ujina and Lady Kaede immediately. They would have to warn the
Emperor before it was too late.

Atsuko’s creaking voice faded from her mind, but even when the touch of the Void left Kaede, the
chill in her heart did not.

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 It shouldn’t have surprised her—the shugenja of the Phoenix Clan had suspected for a long
time that the Unicorn’s foreign sorcery was dangerous. The Emperor should never have accepted it
into his Empire.
And now, it had caused ripples in reality itself, ripples that had been felt by all those with
the gift to perceive the Void. Fortune must have smiled upon Atsuko, or the Ishiken might not have
had the chance to pull apart the tangled knots of the future and catch a glimpse of the source of the
waves.
Kaede poured herself a cup of the tea infusion and placed her hands on both sides of the
porcelain, a vain attempt to ward off the chill.
When she closed her eyes, echoes of the disturbance washed over her again, and the dizziness
returned. She breathed in the sharp scent of ginger to ground herself and quell her unease.
She could reach out, try to send herself to the place and time whence the ripples came, but
she dared not attempt the journey from within the capital. She could drown in the emptiness, or
worse, drag down others with her. As she had before. She would not risk losing anyone else.
She opened her eyes and sipped at the tea, but still her hands trembled.
They said she had inherited Ujina’s gift, that one day she might prove an even more powerful
Ishiken than he. But what good was her gift if it was too powerful to be used?
“The universe seeks equilibrium in all things, Kaede,” her father had assured her. To have
been granted such a terrible gift meant that there would be a terrible need in her lifetime, and one
day she would succeed him as the Master of Void.
She prayed she would be ready when that day came—for both the loss of her father, and the
weight of the responsibility that would be placed on her shoulders.
Here, in the capital, she could use other powers: scholarship and diplomacy. She represented
her father and the rest of the Elemental Council in the highest court, and she advised His Imperial
Majesty on matters of spirits and the realms. The Phoenix had supreme authority on all the realms
except this one: that of Ningen-dō, the mortal realm, the realm threatened in Atsuko’s vision. It was
the sole province of the other clans’ counsel.
The other clans would not take kindly to her interference in their domain.

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All official Imperial business was suspended for the length of the Chrysanthemum Festival, but
Kaede’s warning could not wait. Not when the Ishiken had enacted powerful rituals to contact her
across hundreds of miles in an instant.
And not when there was a chance the Unicorn would flaunt their foreign magics before the
Emperor, endangering him and the innocents who had come to celebrate the day.
Kaede found the Emperor and his children, their Seppun guards, and the highest-ranking
members of the Imperial ministries in the second-story gatehouse that marked the entry to the palace.
Kichō curtains and reed blinds filtered the glare of the summer heat and shielded the Hantei from
public sight while allowing him to observe the ceremonies. As she bowed and entered, she caught
Crown Prince Sotorii’s smirk and lingering gaze, but she couldn’t let that distract her now.
She spied Ishikawa, Captain of the Seppun Honor Guard, and maneuvered herself closer to
him, guessing correctly that he would step away to greet her. They exchanged the sophisticated
dance of pleasantries, but she needed to speak with him alone, away from the rest of the royal
delegation.
“Captain, would you join me in trying to catch a better glimpse of the parade?” The sounds
from the thronged mass in celebration below would keep their words from becoming court gossip.
“Of course,” Ishikawa replied, casting a quick glance to the Ruby Champion, Agasha
Sumiko, who nodded and stepped closer to her charges, the Emperor and his heirs.
A cheer went up from the citizens of the Forbidden City, and the procession rounded the
corner. She had been looking forward to this day, when the pall of mourning for Doji Satsume would
finally be banished by the mirth of celebration. Now, the crescendo of the wooden clappers and
drumbeats sounded like a sickening cicada’s call.
Below them, in the crowded streets, the representatives of the Otomo, Seppun, and Miya
families paraded in their Imperial raiment past the gate. Chrysanthemum blooms were draped about
them in ribbons and they held aloft emerald banners emblazoned with the golden Imperial mon.
“What has cast the shadow I see in your eyes?” the captain asked.
Kaede took a deep breath. “I received word from Starry Heaven Sanctuary today.” Ishikawa
would recognize the name of the school for Void shugenja, and that whatever the message was, it
could not wait. “I come bearing dire portents. Our Ishiken believe the Emperor is in danger.

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 “A darkness threatens from the far west, across the Spine of the World. All of us have felt
it, but one of our own caught a glimpse of its provenance. We believe it originates with the Unicorn
and their talismanic sorcery, their so-called ‘name magic,’ meishōdō.”
The captain considered her words in silence.
After the Imperials marched the Lion, their warriors in full war regalia, white manes flowing
in the wind. These samurai had defended Rokugan from invasion time and again, whether it was
from the hordes of the Burning Sands, the fleets of the Ivory Kingdoms, or more far-flung foreigners.
But would they be able to protect the Emperor against this shadowy threat? Once the
darkness formed, would there be any stopping it? Would the Lion, seemingly poised to start an all-
out war with the Crane, be ready? The Phoenix’s fledgling champion, Shiba Tsukune, would be
hard-pressed to foster peace between those two bitter rivals. Perhaps not even the Emperor could,
now.
The Lion warriors turned and bowed toward the gatehouse in perfect unison. They rose and
shouted, “Banzai!” for their Emperor, before continuing the procession through the Forbidden City.
Her words would be an insult to the honor of the Seppun family and their schools, but Kaede
mustered the courage to ask, “If the Unicorn use their accursed talismans today, and something
happens, will the Emperor’s guards be prepared?”
Ishikawa’s eyes went wide and he immediately checked the gatehouse behind them, ensuring
the safety of the Imperial family. “The members of the Honor Guard are prepared to sacrifice
everything to safeguard the Emperor’s life, and the Hidden Guard shugenja have sworn to protect
the Emperor’s very soul.”
She pressed further—her words bordered on impropriety, but they had known each other for
years. They could be honest with each other. If she had tried to offer her advice to the Seppun
shugenja, they would have dismissed her out of hand. She took a deep breath and asked, “Can they
defend against forces they do not understand?”
He stood straighter, his hands curling into resolute fists. “They are the best of the best, and
they have never failed His Majesty.”
Before the Lion contingent had finished their pass, the drumbeats and song of another clan
floated down the avenue. The Crane were next, promising a spectacular performance of dance and
artistry. Cerulean robes and ribbons flowed and ebbed like the great Sea of the Sun Goddess, and

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like a school of fish, silver swords flashed in a scene from a Kabuki play. Such beauty was so fragile,
so easily snuffed out by the wickedness of the world.
Kaede continued unsteadily. “The techniques of the different families are among their
greatest secrets, and their shugenja traditions are even more carefully guarded. Only over many
centuries have the Isawa come to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each clans’ shugenja.
The Soshi can lift their prayers wordlessly, while the Kitsu invoke the guidance and protection of
their ancestors. We do not know precisely how they do it, but we—and the Hidden Guard—know
what to expect, at the very least.”
“Are not the Asahina shugenja’s charms very similar to—if not the same as—the Iuchi’s
talismans?” Ishikawa tilted his head slightly, looking askance at Kaede. “Both the Crane and
Unicorn’s amulets seem to bestow the blessings of the kami upon their wielder.”
Were they truly blessings of the kami—or some demon’s boon? “Of that we cannot be certain.
No one is.” The Asahina’s charms of bamboo, folded paper, silk, and bells looked not unlike the
omamori crafted by shrine-keepers to share their kami’s blessings, although the Asahina’s
protections were much more powerful. By contrast, many of the Iuchi talismans took the shape of
hideous monstrosities: the human form corrupted with scale-covered tails, feathered wings, horned
heads, and furry legs. They were as grotesque as the oni that dwelled in Jigoku.
Kaede had to make him understand. “I swear, Captain, we do not bring this to you lightly.
You lead the Emperor’s protectors. Please convey my fears to the Emperor—it will only mean
something if it comes from you. If meishōdō is as dangerous as we fear, and your guards are met
with a terrible threat to the Emperor...”
“Then you believe we must forbid it.” Ishikawa filled in her blanks, releasing a sigh. “The
Phoenix and the Lion will rejoice at seeing what they believe to be heresy quashed, but the Dragon
and Crane will not stand idle while their ally is censured. The Crab may be relieved to see their old
enemy weakened, or perhaps they will see it as losing a possible new defense for their Wall. No
doubt the Scorpion will seek to capitalize on the situation either way. Most of all, the Unicorn will
not look kindly on the Emperor refusing to accept their manner of service.”
Yes, there would be many political ramifications, but spiritual threats were much more
complex—and perilous—than mere mortal concerns. Kaede replied, “Yet, if they brought back
witchcraft from the Burning Sands, then surely it is the Emperor who has the wisdom to determine

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whether such arts continue to serve his Empire.” As Lady Sun’s conduit to her lost descendants, the
Emperor was effectively divine, his wisdom irrefutable except by other Hantei.
The Phoenix procession came next, instantly recognizable by the portable shrine carried by
the guardians of the Shiba family. Around the warriors, a flock of shugenja, priests, and shrine-
keepers danced and sang for the glory of the spirit they carried. It was said to be the kami of Seppun
Hill, the guardian spirit of the land beneath this very city, who had watched over the line of the
Hantei since the city’s founding.
“There is another way,” Ishikawa began. “If, as you suggest, the danger lies in not knowing,
then perhaps instead of outlawing it entirely, the Unicorn will submit to teaching the Hidden Guard
the nature of their powers.”
“The Iuchi will be loath to give up their secrets,” Kaede pointed out. Something so simple
as the captain’s solution could never work.
“The Unicorn are a practical clan. Their champion may well decide it is better to confer with
the Seppun than to lose the arts of her shugenja.”
“We shall see,” said Kaede. Ishikawa gazed out at the crowd.
The next delegation snuck up on them, hot on the heels of the Phoenix like the deepest
shadow following the brightest light. A group of acrobats tumbled and contorted and leapt from atop
each other’s backs, spinning through the air before landing gracefully on their feet. Dancers joined
them, donning mask after mask and swirling among silks such that they seemed to flit about the
street. This, too, had to be a trick of some kind, although what hidden meaning lay beneath, Kaede
could not guess.
“Mine will not be the only voice advising him. The Emperor has many counselors, and you
can be sure that each will have their own opinions. Any decision will come neither lightly nor
quickly.”
By then, it might be too late. She would have to find a way to sway these other counselors,
or find a way to protect the Imperial family herself. “This cannot be delayed as so many matters of
court are! Please, take this directly to him, I beg of you. For my sake, but also for the Emperor’s.”
Ishikawa’s eyes held hers, too long, but neither of them could look away. “Very well, Kaede-
san. If the Emperor indeed judges your concern sound, he will need help to enforce his laws. We
have the Emerald Magistrates, but the Jade Magistrates of yore—” A cheer went up, cutting him
off.

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 “The Phoenix will assist however they are needed, make any sacrifice,” Kaede quickly put
in. The office of the Jade Champion had not been needed in centuries, and the Empire did not need
them now. The Elemental Masters were the supreme authority on spiritual matters, and they would
see to the law’s implementation themselves. They would ensure that there would be no cause for
the Imperial ministry dedicated to rooting out heretical shugenja to be reinstated.
At last, the delegation she feared most came into view, their contingent mounted atop
terrifying steeds, their purple and white garb bearing patterns she had never seen before. A stench
wafted up from the horses, sickly sweet and turning her stomach. The clop-clop-clopping of hooves
against the stone-paved avenue matched the pounding of her heart; their whickers and neighs sent
shudders down her spine.
Please, let nothing happen, she prayed. Her power answered unbidden, welling up inside
her. The cold emptiness of the Void lapped at her feet, as though she were standing in the surf of a
starry night’s sea. Despite the heat of the day, she shivered beneath her many-layered robes.
“Kaede, are you—”
“Forget me,” she managed to whisper. “Go to the Emperor. Ensure he is safe.”
While the horses trotted in circles, weaving a pattern like the shifting sun, a Unicorn shugenja
at the circle’s center held aloft a golden winged talisman, a ruby gem glinting with the light of
Amaterasu.
No!
The Void knocked her feet from under her, and a riptide of power threatened to consume
her. Let go, and you will have all the power you need. Surrender to the will of the world.
I will not give in. But I must see… Her vision darkened, and she saw into the Realm of Void.
Where before had existed only the parade, now infinite street-goers were packed into the avenue,
souls from every moment from the distant past to the far future, their elements bleeding through the
scene in four colors. War, peace, desolation, desecration. She strained to find a single thread in time,
to see where the Unicorn shugenja had stood.
The cold of the Void pressed down, trying to drown her. There! She could see it for but an
instant: a spirit, a shadowy creature of smokeless fire, horned and bestial. It howled, writhing against
some binding force, trying to pry itself loose.
Deeper and deeper, into the nothingness, one with an ocean that never ended—
Remember yourself, came her father’s voice. Do not lose your way.

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 I am Isawa Kaede, daughter of Ujina, daughter of Ninube, sister to Tadaka, spiritual advisor
to Hantei the Thirty-Eighth, betrothed to Akodo Toturi, friend to Ishikawa...
She surfaced from the darkness and gasped at the returned warmth of the sun. The Emperor—
the princes—
A cry went up from the crowd—one of joy, not fear.
Her back was pressed against the battlements, her legs shaking, breath unsteady. She prayed
no one had seen her stumble, or sensed that she had nearly lost herself to her power.
The Unicorn finished their display with a bow to the Emperor, and they bid their horses trot
past the gatehouse.
Much of the crowd’s attention turned from the parade, moving on to the next celebration or
to the countless stalls of food and wine. The Crab, who were next, had offered only a dour contingent
of warriors for the parade of Great Clans.
The captain returned, wariness in his eyes. “I saw something,” she managed, her voice
trembling. “A spirit, trapped within the talisman. It was trying to break free, trying to get to the
Emperor.”
He regarded her for a long time. Something in his eyes told her he believed her, but he wasn’t
convinced. “I will see to it that His Majesty is warned, but that is all I can guarantee.” He bowed his
farewell and returned to the gatehouse.
“Fortunes guide us all,” Kaede whispered.
Only the Dragon remained. Ambassador Kitsuki Yaruma and his meager delegation marched
in silence.
The ambassador turned and looked upon Kaede with a cold, knowing stare. She could not
fathom why.

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Meanwhile, in the Imperial Capital...

Bayushi Shoju, Champion of the Scorpion Clan, leapt over the incoming blow, dodging right and
striking left as he did. He was as water, liquid movement, placing himself where his opponent’s
strikes were not. His opponent was as fire, speed and aggression, lashing out with a barrage of
attacks that would have quickly overwhelmed a lesser adversary.
Another slash; he dodged again. This time, he kicked outward, his foot slamming into his
opponent’s shoulder. The woman recovered quickly, but not quickly enough. Shoju’s weapon struck
through the miniscule gap opened in his opponent’s chain of attacks, finding the woman’s stomach
and driving her back with a grunt. She immediately knelt and dropped her weapon.
Shoju had landed a harder hit than he’d intended, and he lost a moment recovering. Frowning
behind his mask, he turned to the bushi he’d defeated.
“Well fought, Yunako-san. If you hadn’t swung wide on that next-to-last strike, it would be
me, not you, now kneeling on the dōjō floor.”
Bayushi Yunako bowed. “You honor me, Bayushi-ue.”
Shoju hefted the bokken, the wooden practice sword, in his right hand. The potency of the
Shosuro potions that gave strength and flexibility to his right arm, withered since birth, was
beginning to fade. He turned toward the rack of practice weapons, meaning to end the sparring
bout... but stopped. A thought had occurred to him the previous night, and now was the perfect time
to pursue it. He turned back.
“Yunako-san,” he said, “retrieve your katana.”

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 “Hai, Bayushi-ue.”
Shoju waited as the other Bayushi walked across open expanse of the dōjō practice hall, her
feet whispering through the cushion of sand covering the floor. Placing the bokken down, she drew
her katana with a whisper of steel, carefully replaced its sheath beside her wakizashi, the other blade
of her daishō, and then returned to face her champion.
“Now,” Shoju said, “I want you to kill me.”
Yunako bowed. “As you wish, Bayushi-ue.” Straightening, she exploded into movement,
slashing at Shoju with a cut that would have decapitated him had it connected.
It didn’t, but missed by barely a finger’s length as Shoju leapt aside. Twisting mid-leap, he
struck back with his bokken. Once more, he was water; once more, Yunako was fire. This time,
however, her strikes were edged with razor steel and the full intent, as Shoju had commanded, to
kill.
A vicious cut whistled past Shoju’s gut, nearly disemboweling him. Behind his mask, he
smiled and jabbed the bokken at Yunako, hard. The other Bayushi sidestepped and struck back like
a literal scorpion, with an overhand swing that blurred at Shoju’s neck. He twisted and kicked at
Yunako’s leg, knocking her off-balance enough to let him duck his head under the attack. Grinning
now, he followed up with a backhand blow that struck Yunako’s arm. As quick as thought, she
changed direction, moving with the strike to dissipate its energy. At the same time, she whipped her
katana in a wide arc to slash across Shoju’s back.
He laughed.
Still water, Shoju threw himself forward, driving his whole weight against Yunako in a way
that was earth, solid and inevitable. He was now also fire, as fast as a leaping tongue of flame... air,
aware of every movement of arm and hand, leg and foot, every shift in weight, every tension and
relaxation of muscle... and void in the union of it all into a single, perfect moment, fully mindful
and entirely mindless—
His leap forward and sudden impact against his opponent caused a fractional hesitation in
her swing...time enough for him to slam the bokken against Yunako’s sword hand, drive his own
left hand forward, and snatch the katana from her grasp. He deflected its momentum down, then
around and up in front of his own body, letting his weight keep shoving her back and down until he
landed on top of her, one knee driving up, against her stomach, pinning her, while the katana finished
its new arc and came to rest against her neck.

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 Blood wept from the touch of steel on flesh, as crimson-bright as the tsubaki flower, the red
camellia that bloomed in the Imperial Gardens. Shoju smiled again behind his mask, at the
appropriateness of it.
For her part, Yunako simply waited, her face calm, almost serene, her eyes focused on
something above and beyond her champion. A long moment passed. Finally, her eyes moved to
meet Shoju’s.
“My honor,” she said, “and my life, for the Scorpion.”
Shoju kept his gaze locked on Yunako’s. Such direct eye contact was a breach of etiquette
in court—but this wasn’t court. He found no fear in her eyes, no hesitation or regret.
Shoju nodded once and tensed his arm holding the katana—
Then leapt and spun into a crouch, Yunako’s blade ready against whoever had quietly
entered the dōjō and now stood nearby.
“My apologies, Lord Shoju,” Bayushi Kachiko said, a smile playing around her lips. “Am I
interrupting?”
Shoju lowered the blade and motioned for Yunako to stand. Reversing the katana, he offered
it back to her, hilt first. “I believe this is yours, Yunako-san.”
Yunako bowed deeply, acknowledging both her clan champion and, now, the Imperial
Advisor. Blood dripped from her wounded neck. “It is I who must apologize, Bayushi-ue, for my
poor performance here today. I fear I was an unworthy opponent for you.”
“On the contrary, you were most worthy, Yunako-san. I would spar with you again. Tend to
your wound, then be here at dawn.”
“Hai, Bayushi-ue.” Yunako accepted her katana from Shoju, moved to retrieve the rest of
her daishō, bowed again, and retired from the dōjō.
Kachiko turned her hinted smile back at Shoju. “Do you intend to make that woman your
concubine?”
Shoju retrieved the bokken and returned it to its rack. “And if I did?”
“There are better choices. There is a Shosuro who would be a good candidate, and also a
Yogo I could suggest...mind you, best not to actually fall in love with that one, given her family’s
curse.”
Shoju scooped sand from the dōjō floor and scrubbed the sweat from his hands. His withered
right arm twinged again, reminding him he needed another dose of the Shosuro potions. “What need

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do I have for a concubine,” he said, stepping close to Kachiko, “when my wife is the most desirable
woman in Rokugan?”
“Be careful, Lord Shoju...if your wife hears you saying such things, she may begin to believe
them.”
Shoju allowed his smile to touch his eyes. “Believing what is true is only sensible.”
“Such irony, coming from the Master of Secrets and Lies.”
“I do sometimes speak the truth.”
The light in Kachiko’s eyes became more intense. “And they are inevitably truths that please
me.”
Shoju allowed the moment between them to linger, then stepped back. “I assume you did not
merely come here to watch me spar. Allow me to bathe; then we will speak further. Let us meet by
the uppermost koi pond, at the ending of the Hour of the Monkey.”
Kachiko brushed a finger along Shoju’s palm as she withdrew her hand. “I look forward to
it, my husband.”

Shoju watched as the koi swam about the pond in their mindless way, orange-gold, creamy white,
and occasionally black. Their movements truly were water, a ceaseless, languid flow. Some among
the Phoenix believed that studying the actions of koi could reveal insights about the future.
Bending down, he placed a finger into the water, blocking the way of a particular fish. It
bumped into his finger, recoiled, and swam another way. Another fish changed its course as a result,
and another because of that one, and so on, until the meandering paths of most of the koi had been
affected.
The Phoenix may be right, Shoju thought. But merely discerning the future wasn’t enough.
Changing it, shaping it, as he had just changed the actions of the koi… that was what mattered.
“Your son,” Kachiko said from behind him, “would be charmed to see you playing with the
fish.”
Shoju kept watching the koi. “Dairu is more than old enough to recognize what is play…
and what is not.”
“So you are tending to the fish, then? We have servants for such things.”

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 As they swam about, Shoju noticed the koi were now avoiding his finger, incorporating its
presence into their behavior. He withdrew it and stood. “There is value, sometimes,” he said, “in
such simple things as tending to fish… particularly when that simplicity is deceptive.”
Kachiko moved beside him. “Simplicity is almost always deceptive.”
Shoju nodded. A short distance away, a peasant gardener trimmed withered blossoms from
a purple sprawl of violets. Farther away, in another direction, a pair of servants carried lumber
toward a teahouse undergoing repairs, tucked discreetly among a stand of cherry trees. There were
other servants, Shoju knew, elsewhere among the foliage around them, engaged in all of the various
labors needed to keep the gardens a place of tailored beauty. Simple people, doing simple things.
And all of it a lie.
They were servants, yes, but they were also agents of the Scorpion. Through their presence
and movements, they would ensure that no one would be able to approach him and Kachiko closely
enough to overhear whatever they might say—at least, not without them knowing about it. The
gardener would turn his attention to a nearby hibiscus, the laborers working on the teahouse would
move a particular piece of lumber, and Shoju would know someone was approaching long before
they got close enough to be a concern. Small and simple things done by apparently small and simple
people, but actually full of meaning—deceptive simplicity, all of it in service to the Scorpion.
“Something troubles you, my husband,” Kachiko said.
“Many things trouble me.”
“Is that why you were seriously considering killing that samurai in the dōjō?”
Shoju glanced at Kachiko, then began to walk, following a winding path away from the koi
pond. Kachiko fell smoothly into step alongside him.
“She needed to see that my intent to kill her was true,” he said, “so that I, in turn, could see
her reaction to it.”
“You were testing her.”
Shoju watched as the servants-who-weren’t began to move about the gardens, repositioning
themselves to accommodate his and Kachiko’s movements. “Bayushi Yunako was suggested to me
as a candidate for command of the Bayushi Elite Guard. Such a position demands loyalty that is
absolute, and a devotion to duty that is unwavering. I therefore told her to kill me, and she
immediately brought all of her skills to bear, seeking to do just that. And when I had defeated her,
she was just as ready to die by my hand, without question or even understanding why.”

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 “A dead woman would make a poor commander, no matter how loyal or devoted.”
“Then it was a good thing,” Shoju said, “that you showed up when you did.”
Kachiko smiled. For a while, they just walked among trees in bloom, taking in the colors
and mingled scents of myriad flowers. Eventually, they reached a small, arched bridge over a placid
creek, one of several that meandered through the gardens of the Imperial Palace. Shoju stopped at
the peak of the arch and leaned on the railing, looking along the watercourse to where it vanished
beneath a spill of weeping-willow fronds.
Kachiko placed her hand on the railing, just touching his. “And still my words stand
unanswered,” she said. “Something troubles you...something beyond merely selecting trusted
commanders for our clan’s military forces.”
Shoju watched a solitary rose petal drift along the creek. “I am mindful of a Kabuki play I
recently saw,” he said. “The attention was meant to be on the actors, of course, who all played their
roles with appropriate skill. My own interest, however, kept returning to the kuroko: the stagehands,
all dressed in black, who moved props about and rearranged the stage and scenery as the play
progressed. They dressed in black because they were meant to be invisible and ignored.” He looked
at Kachiko. “It struck me, though, that the kuroko are really the most important of the players on
the stage. Their placement of the scenery and props determines the movements of those actors.
Change a single element even slightly, and a performer can be made to step into shadow, or stoop
slightly, or come somewhat too close to the edge of the stage. This will change how that actor
delivers their performance and, with it, the delivery of the play itself.”
Kachiko watched her husband but said nothing and waited for him to go on.
Shoju looked back at the drifting petal. “If the Empire is the play, and the clans its players,
then ours is at the center of the stage, where the attention is most focused.” He turned back to
Kachiko. “But is that where the Scorpion belong? Are we not meant to be the kuroko, dressed in
black and largely ignored, arranging and shaping the events of the Empire, while all eyes are fixed
elsewhere?”
“We have labored mightily to gain the power we now hold,” Kachiko said. “Years of careful
planning, of procuring key appointments and influential marriages, of removing those who would
stand in our way—all of it has culminated in what we now have. The Scorpion have earned the
center of the Imperial stage, have we not?”

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 “I don’t dispute that,” Shoju said. “We have, indeed, earned what we have. That doesn’t
mean it’s what we should have.”
“I believe I hear echoes in your voice, husband. Echoes of the daimyō of the Soshi and Yogo
families...”
“Soshi Shiori and Yogo Junzo have both conveyed their thoughts to me, yes. Both, in their
own respective ways, believe that we have accrued power at the expense of what our true role in the
Empire should be.”
“And you agree with them?”
Shoju looked for the rose petal, but it was gone, vanished beneath the willow fronds. “I do
not immediately disagree with them.” He smiled at Kachiko. “However, I wouldn’t assume a
position either way without first hearing what my most trusted advisor has to say about the matter.”
“It sounds like you’re suggesting we surrender power to the other clans, allowing them to
make gains in the Imperial Court. And this would be to enable us to work from the margins, from a
weakened position?” Kachiko raised an eyebrow. “It is an interesting approach to furthering our
clan’s agenda.”
“My distant predecessor, Bayushi Ogoe, did this very thing, did he not? The Scorpion were
then ascendant in the Empire in almost every way. By bragging about how easy it would be to defeat
the Unicorn, when every other clan had failed, and then losing to them in a truly humiliating fashion,
he made our clan appear overconfident and weak. The other clans dismissed us and fell back to
fighting among themselves—the perfect conditions for doing the things that our clan does best.”
“The difference,” Kachiko said, “is that the Rokugan of Ogoe’s time was relatively
prosperous and stable. The clans found it easy to view the Scorpion as a common enemy.” Kachiko
looked toward a stand of maples farther along the path they’d been walking. Her eyes were distant,
though, gazing at things beyond the trees. “By comparison, the Empire today is in turmoil. The
Crane hover on the brink of famine—a famine that could spread, if harvests so much as falter in
another part of the Empire. The Dragon grapple with ever-fewer births among their people, even
while this Perfect Land Sect rises among them, preaching heresy and sedition. The Crab fight
desperately to hold the Carpenter Wall against the darkness, the Phoenix find communion with the
elemental kami ever more difficult—”
“I am well aware of the issues facing the Empire,” Shoju said. “It is because of them, in fact,
that the clans turn envious eyes toward us. Take Doji Hotaru. She may be young and inexperienced

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in her role as the Champion of the Crane, but she is Doji Satsume’s daughter. She will seek power
in the courts to offset her clan’s weakness elsewhere, particularly in the wake of the Emerald
Champion’s death. She will likely find eager allies to that end in the Phoenix and the Unicorn.”
“The Phoenix are of little consequence,” Kachiko said, shrugging slightly, “and there will
be no alliance permitted between the Crane and the Unicorn. Moreover, her clan’s loss of the
Emerald Championship can be our gain. Your brother, Aramoro, would be an excellent candidate,
I think.”
“Perhaps… but Kakita Yoshi is still the Imperial Chancellor. He will likely be most
accommodating when Hotaru wishes to advance her clan’s agenda in the courts.”
“You can rest assured that you needn’t worry about Hotaru or, by extension, the Crane, my
husband.”
Shoju looked down into the water, taking note of the certainty in Kachiko’s tone. After a
brief pause to allow her to see he had noted it, he continued. “Then there is the matter of the Crab.
Hida Kisada begins to mutter darkly about us, over the matter of the Emperor’s apparent lack of
interest in the mounting threat to the Wall. At the very least, he wonders why we don’t use our
influence to convince the Emperor that securing the Wall is the Empire’s most pressing concern.”
“It is unlike Kisada to so openly admit weakness.”
“I have offered him aid from our clan, troops and material, but he demands an unacceptable
degree of control over them.”
“That is just stubborn Crab pride.”
“Indeed, but it doesn’t change the fact they are another clan beginning to eye our power and
influence with growing resentment.”
Kachiko said nothing for a while. Shoju felt her weighing something in the silence, as though
deciding whether she should speak and, if so, what words to use. Curious, he waited, listening to the
soft gurgle of the stream under the bridge.
“Perhaps,” Kachiko finally said, “there is an alternative way of seeing this play.”
Shoju looked at her.
“Perhaps,” she went on, “instead of surrendering power and moving into the shadows like
your kuroko, we should do the opposite. Just as I suggested we consider seeing Aramoro made
Emerald Champion, perhaps we should be gathering and consolidating even more power for our
clan.”

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 “That would be a brazen strategy.”
“Possibly. But again, this is not Ogoe’s Empire. In dire times, Rokugan needs strength and
leadership. Dissipating our gains and allowing them to accrue to others simply risks all of the clans
being weak, at the very time when at least one of them must be strong.”
“Bayushi-no-Kami told the first Emperor we would be his villain,” Shoju said, “not the
enforcers of his will.”
“True. But many Hantei emperors have come and gone in the meantime. None have enjoyed
the favor of Heaven as clearly as the first. And this one, the thirty-eighth—”
Shoju held up a hand. “Your words are becoming dangerous, my wife, if you are suggesting
that the Celestial Heavens have withdrawn their favor from this Hantei.”
“I presume to suggest no such thing,” Kachiko said. “I merely observe that crisis and strife
are rising across the Empire. The Emperor needs to be especially strong in such a time. He needs
the strength that you have, Bayushi Shoju of the Scorpion.”
Shoju clasped his hands behind his back, his good left holding his withered right. “An absurd
thought occurs to me,” he said. “Perhaps it is only because I’m fatigued after my exertions in the
dōjō. However, one could take what you just said to mean that I could sit upon the Chrysanthemum
Throne.” He smiled. “As I said, though, it is absurd to think you could even be so much as hinting
at such a thing, isn’t it?”
Kachiko laughed.
“Oh, my husband...do you really believe I could even imagine such a thing? That I would
see anyone but a Hantei upon the throne of Rokugan?” She laughed again. “When Bayushi-no-Kami
said he would be Hantei-no-Kami’s villain, I don’t believe he intended quite that degree of villainy.
As you said, it is an entirely absurd thought.”
“Perhaps,” Shoju said, his smile vanishing, “you should choose your words with more care,
then, my wife.” Looking around, he saw the gardener, now trimming grass beneath a hibiscus...the
teahouse laborers, now shifting another piece of lumber. These gardens, like the Imperial Court
itself, effectively belonged to the Scorpion. It was almost certain no one would ever be able to
overhear them.
Almost.
Kachiko bowed an apology. “You are right, of course, my husband. I will endeavor not to
be so careless in the future.”

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 Shoju nodded and began walking again, across the bridge and toward the stand of maples.
Kachiko once more fell into step beside him and they resumed their discussion, talking about the
many troubles facing the Empire, and the challenges—and opportunities—they presented to the
Scorpion Clan.

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“There! Do you see that?” Doji Kuwanan’s armor, lacquered in the blue and silver colors of the
Crane Clan, clinked as he pointed to the thin column of dust rising along the horizon where plains
met sky.
His patrol partner, Takeaki, shielded his eyes from the bright glare of the sun and squinted.
“A merchant’s cart? The spring rains are late this year,” he said, kicking up dust of his own under
his armored zori sandals.
Around them, birdsong mixed with the chants and drumming of the peasants as they
rhythmically tilled the soil and spread seeds atop the furrowed earth. A cool breeze brought the
earthy smell of fertilizer to the pair of samurai warriors and sent ripples across the plains.
Kuwanan shook his head. “There’s too much dust for a single cart. And no caravan’s due
for weeks yet.” He hurried atop the nearby arched bridge to get a better look. A blur of dark brown
silhouettes emerged from behind a gently sloping hill, speeding toward them.
“Quiet!” Kuwanan bellowed at the farmers, who ceased their dance of sowing and planting
in an instant. The distant thunder of galloping hooves soon overtook the sound of chattering birds,
and Takeaki muttered a curse.
“Someone’s coming! Get back to the village!” Kuwanan shouted, and the peasants
scrambled up to the road. He and Takeaki strung their bows and took up defensive positions atop
the bridge. “If the Lion are finally mounting an attack, let them try to take this village from us!” He
nocked an arrow and prepared to take aim.

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Kakita Asami of the Crane Clan delicately refilled four teacups: one for each of her Lion Clan hosts,
one for her bodyguard, and finally one for herself. How she longed to be a student again, when
mastering proper tea-pouring techniques was the greatest of her worries, not whether she could
prevent a war between her people and the Lion Clan.
She stifled a wistful sigh and settled back into a seated kneeling position on the tatami mat
floor. The meeting room was small and plain by Crane standards, but then again, she was in a castle
in the heart of Lion lands.
“Our priests have heard the laments of our honored ancestors. They demand the Crane return
the Osari Plains to their rightful owners,” warned Ikoma Eiji, a Lion Clan historian and her
diplomatic counterpart.
His attendant, the warrior Matsu Beiona, paced one side of the room, her mouth hardened
into a frown. Beneath that mask of self-control, rage and frustration seethed. It wouldn’t take much
to incite her into an outburst, but that wouldn’t serve Asami’s purposes here. Her father had bidden
that she provide a diplomatic back channel in case tempers flared too hot during the more public
rounds of negotiation at the Imperial Capital.
And if tempers flared here, too—well, that’s why Kaezin-san had been appointed her
personal bodyguard, her yōjimbō.
Asami sipped her tea and smiled softly. “Perhaps your shugenja misread the omens. The
Crane Clan is the rightful owner of the plains.” Even if the Lion shugenja were true mediums
between this world and their ancestors, supernatural “evidence” wasn’t admissible as proof in any
legal proceedings.
The Ikoma historian rose and gestured toward the horizon, his eyes narrowing in indignation.
“Your warriors have occupied these lands for but two turns of the seasons. Before that, the Lion
were its protectors.”
Asami looked to her own stoic guardian, who kept a close watch on the Matsu. She began
tactfully: “For three short generations, yes, the Lion were its protectors. But our elders can remember
the days when the Crane tended the beasts of those pastures and reaped the harvest of those fields—
as we did for centuries untold.”
The Crane needed those lands now more than it had ever needed them before. After the
tsunami, their rice paddies in the coastal provinces had been devastated, and their priests did not

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know when the Earth spirits would return to the fields and bless their crops once more. For the same
reasons, her clan could not afford a war, especially while fighting intensified at Toshi Ranbo.
“The Crane stole those lands from the Lion!” The Ikoma snapped his fan shut and pointed it
at Asami. “It was not through strength of blade and honor that the day was won, but through foul
trickery. The Crane did not have enough numbers to prevail, and yet somehow they did. The Lion
remember. Our ancestors do not lie.”
Asami took a deep breath. She had known this accusation was coming, but the foresight did
not soften the sting of his words.
The historian stopped in front of a scroll bearing a quote from Akodo’s Leadership, the
definitive treatise on the art of war by the Kami himself. “Without honor, there is no victory. Without
fear, there is no defeat,” it read. He stroked his goatee as if in thought.
Asami recalled a different line from Akodo’s Leadership, and she considered offering its
wisdom to her host: On the battlefield, all actions are honorable.
But he continued before she could speak. “At the dawn of the Empire, the first Hantei
charged Lord Akodo himself with maintaining these lands on his behalf. The very Heavens ordained
that they belong beneath the Lion’s banner.”
Asami closed her eyes, and prayed to Lady Doji that her next words would bear the weight
of her determination and the levity of her foremother’s grace. “We cannot forever dwell in the past;
it is in the present that we must live. If the Heavens had truly decreed that the Lion be its safekeepers,
your forces would not have lost to our own.”
Uncomfortable silence pressed between them. Beyond the open screen doors and the veranda
that circled the inner courtyard, cherry blossoms swirled in the breeze. The petals reminded her of
a blizzard, of the long nights spent at home with stories, songs, and the smiles of her childhood
sweetheart. But winter was already past, and spring would soon be over as well. Summer, the season
of war, grew near.
The Ikoma began his counterattack. “The fact remains that the Lion are best equipped to
ensure the plains’ continued protection. Your coastal holdings have fallen prey to pirate incursions
on too many occasions. It would be a shame if a similar roving band of miscreants were to attack
the Osari villages. Do we not want the same thing: to safeguard the Emperor’s lands as effectively
as possible?”

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 Asami had to consider her words carefully, lest she insinuate that the answer was “no.” “We
will protect these lands well.”
“Then let us try out the courtier’s theory!” the Matsu shouted. “Our honor demands we
reclaim these lands by force! We waste our time bickering here. Let us test our mettle on the
battlefield! My ancestors scream for justice. The Crane will scatter before our mighty roar!”
“Please calm your companion,” Asami said evenly, ignoring the bushi’s outburst. For a
moment, she thought she saw the historian smirk.
Ikoma Eiji asked, “Are you afraid of Beiona-san making good on her threats? Isn’t Doji
Kuwanan-sama posted along the front now, guarding the village of Shirei?”
Asami’s heart tightened in her chest. He could be, but she couldn’t know for sure. She hadn’t
seen him in months, and his letters had ceased since the death of his father. Had she really been so
obvious with her affections in public? Did the historian know about them?
No. Impossible. Surely Kuwanan was posted elsewhere, safely serving in a court on his
sister’s behalf.
The screen behind them slid open, and a servant entered to proffer a scroll to his master. “An
urgent letter, my lord.”
The Ikoma took the scroll and dismissed the messenger. The room grew silent as he read.
“Lady Asami, it appears that our conversation is over. It is just as I feared—a band of
honourless ronin have slaughtered the Crane forces at Shirei Mura.”
Kuwanan’s body unmoving in the mud, blood and dirt dulling the brilliance of his blue-
silver armor. A hideous ronin brandishing Kuwanan’s ancestral katana in a mockery of the Kakita
family technique.
She banished the image from her mind, but her heart still beat loudly in her ears and her
cheeks scalded red. Asami instinctively raised her fan to cover her mouth and lowered it again, in
one smooth motion, as though she hadn’t tried to hide her reaction.
“This is terrible news,” she managed. Ikoma Eiji took a seat again, opened his calligraphy
set, and began to compose a letter.
The Crane Clan forces would not have fallen—not to some “band of ronin,” as the Lion had
claimed. Even if there had been ronin at the vanguard, the Lion had assuredly paid them off, and
some bannerless Lion Clan ashigaru had no doubt supported the warriors as well.

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 Honor demanded that Asami believe his words, or at least act as though she did, but the hope
in her heart refused. Doji Kuwanan could not be dead. If the Crane Clan Champion lost both her
brother and her father in the same season, could she still pursue peace? Or would she be forced to
avenge her kin?
With their diplomatic leverage gone, all she could do now was pray the Crane retook the
village in time. If the Lion “overcame” the ronin first, the Crane would be dealt a serious blow to
their case. Once again the Lion were attempting to provoke the Crane, and whoever struck first
would lose the sympathy of the Emperor.
“Kaezin-san,” she said, standing at last, her yōjimbō rising beside her. “Let us return home.”
Matsu Beiona’s hand moved to rest on the hilt of her katana. Kaezin took a step in front of
Asami, and she saw him discreetly unlock his sword, ready to strike at any moment.
Ikoma Eiji set down his brush and sighed. “The negotiations in Otosan Uchi have not yet
finished, and our lord would have you remain our honored guest until everything is sorted out.”
The historian said one thing, but Asami understood the message that lay beneath: she,
Kaezin, and their retinue were hostages. In case it finally came to war.
“Lady Asami, you are welcome to add a few lines if you please,” he said, gesturing to the
parchment. “The Crane Clan delegation to the capital will be glad to see your calligraphy and know
that you remain safe during your time with us.”
In her writing to him, Kakita Yuri would know with certainty that she had failed him—both
as a diplomat and as a daughter.
The final cherry blossom broke away from the branch and drifted to the ground.

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Several weeks later...

Ide Tadaji had expected such a gambit from the Scorpion, but not from the Phoenix. Suddenly,
rumors swirled around meishōdō at the highest of levels. Some advisors were said to be advocating
for the Emperor to outlaw it entirely. There had been scant time to prepare a response, to call in
favors among the Emperor’s most trusted counselors and ensure that the Unicorn did not suffer a
major loss of face in the impending session of court. He had moved as many pieces as he could to
gain the advantage, to force the game to unfold as he willed it.
If his opponent had outmaneuvered him, it would fall within Altansarnai’s rights to call for
his retirement—or seppuku.
“Ambassador Ide Tadaji,” came Captain Ishikawa’s voice as he rounded a corner and entered
the audience chamber. Tadaji knelt deeply on the mat. When he straightened himself, the captain
had settled in with the painted green bamboo forest on the screen behind him. Golden
chrysanthemum medallions had been inlaid on each screen, lest anyone forget the Seppun’s royal
lineage.
“Captain Ishikawa. Thank you for inviting me this day,” Tadaji offered. The Seppun family
was normally reclusive— focused single-mindedly on their task of protecting the Emperor and his
immediate family. It was on such business that the Unicorn’s representative had been brought into
their sanctum.
“No doubt you have heard of the concerns raised over your clan’s magical practices,”
Ishikawa began.

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 Tadaji nodded. “Yes, Captain.” Ishikawa had carefully omitted the Phoenix’s ownership
over those concerns. Was it due to his sympathies for the clan, or because he was one of the few
Imperials who did not see a benefit from increased rivalry among the clans?
A heaviness weighed in the air. The moment of truth. Ishikawa sat before him, but Tadaji
could feel him standing behind him as well: his second, ready to finish off the self-inflicted agony.
Had Iuchi doomed the Unicorn by adopting these practices from the sahir? When the
Fortunes and kami ignored his prayers in the Burning Sands, should he have accepted their refusal?
Shinjo-no-Kami herself had allowed the practice. Do not dishonor her with your doubt,
Tadaji.
Although it had only been a moment, Ishikawa finally said, “The Emperor does not believe
the magic of the Unicorn need be censured.”
The shadow standing over him fell away with the words, but Tadaji did not dare allow
himself a sigh of relief. Nothing would be so simple—the terms of the Emperor’s forbearance came
next, and the Phoenix would not permit the Unicorn to go on their way completely unscathed. Not
if the Elemental Masters had aught to say about it.
“The Unicorn have served the Emperor well in their time venturing in foreign lands as well
as during their time here. We do not see cause to prevent them from serving in their fashion.
However—”
There it was.
“The Seppun must serve their duty as well, and they cannot protect the Emperor knowing so
little of the practice and its nature. We require that one of the Unicorn’s practitioners travel to the
capital to teach our guards.”
Alter the bargain! Sweeten the airag for the Unicorn somehow. He made to speak, then
stopped himself. What could he say to make the Imperials show greater mercy than they already
had?
Ishikawa continued, “We understand that Iuchi Daiyu’s own daughter has recently
completed her gempuku and is among your most promising meishōdō practitioners.”
Ah, yes. Shahai. The perfect candidate for a teacher—and a hostage. Was this Kaede’s
doing? A master stroke—if the Unicorn’s magic ceased to be acceptable, the clan would be forced
to cease immediately lest anything befall the daughter of the Iuchi daimyō.
The shadowy second had withdrawn to stand over her head, sword ready to swing.

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 “She will be an honored guest in this very palace and afforded all the luxuries of the
Forbidden City.”
So they would take her away from her people, her father, her home. She was to become a
mere cog in the machinations of court and a traitor in the eyes of her people. Even if she had been
commanded by the Emperor Himself to do so, she would still be sharing her family’s secrets,
betraying its tradition to outsiders. She would never truly be welcome among the Iuchi again.
None of that mattered to the Emperor or his family. Why should it? “Of course. I will send
word to Lord Iuchi Daiyu upon one of our fastest steeds.”
“The Emperor extends his assurances that all his servants are greatly valued for their
service.”
“We humbly accept—and are most grateful for—the Emperor’s faith.” The rest of the clan
would have to feel the same. They had no other choice.
Yes—the Emperor’s wisdom had spared the Unicorn delegation the humiliation of a
tremendous blow to their resources at a time when they needed to be strong and attractive allies for
the Crane, and make use of the Crane’s political acumen, even if Hotaru’s coffers couldn’t pave the
diplomatic road as easily as they once could.
The Lion would be furious, but then again, there was already no love lost between them and
the Unicorn. He would deal with Ambassador Ikoma Ujiaki—even if their words might well become
blows exchanged on the battlefield soon.
The Phoenix, however—they would not cease casting a suspicious eye at the Clan of the
Wind. It would be almost impossible to win their aid, even with the help of the Dragon Clan.
The pieces had shifted on the board in a single stroke, as though someone had picked up the
board and slid everything to one side. A few were bound to fall off entirely.
The question was whether the pieces could be brought back to the table once they had been
removed from the game. And what Tadaji had to do to make that happen.

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96
In the City of Lies, it was almost refreshing to see a dispute settled with the clean strike of an iaijutsu
duel.
Yogo Hiroue had suggested to his lord that it might be advantageous for them if Bayushi
Gensato threw the fight. “After all,” he’d said, “Kitsuki-san will hardly be inclined to stay at your
party for long if she’s humiliated by defeat at his hands.” He thought, but did not say, she knows
your reputation too well.
The city’s governor, Shosuro Hyobu, had dismissed this notion with a single flick of her fan.
“Kitsuki-san may not be trained as an investigator, but she is a master of the Mirumoto technique—
however unorthodox her style may be. If Gensato does anything less than his best against her, she
will know.”
So now the two bushi stood facing one another in the night, feet carefully planted in the
gravel of the courtyard, the torchlight around them casting shadows that danced even while the
sources remained still. Hiroue made a show of examining Kitsuki Shomon’s stance, but it truly was
a show; he was at best an indifferent swordsman himself. Like all Mirumoto-trained bushi, Shomon
stood ready to draw not only her katana but also her wakizashi. Any unorthodoxy beyond that,
however, was invisible to him.
She was a stocky woman, and would have been considered plain among courtiers, but Hiroue
always felt that skill created its own kind of beauty. With a few wind-blown strands of hair across
her face and her eyes fixed intently on Gensato, she made a striking picture. He could believe this
was the woman who, in defiance of all convention, had established a dōjō in Ryokō Owari that
accepted any student: not just fellow members of the Dragon Clan, not just clan samurai, but anyone

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with the right to carry daishō, down to ronin. She even spared some of her time to instruct peasants!
Not in swordsmanship, of course; any peasant found with a sword would be executed, and the sensei
would be lucky if she had the opportunity to erase her shame with seppuku. But Shomon taught
them the basics of jūjutsu, as if she were a monk of the Brotherhood, claiming that it improved their
bodies and spirits. If it also helped those peasants protect themselves against the ruthless “fireman”
gangs that held so much of the city in their grip... surely that was coincidence.
Given that many of those gangs were in the governor’s pay, Shosuro-sama had surprised
nearly everyone by permitting Shomon to run her dōjō as she saw fit. But Hiroue knew that Shomon,
with the typical unpredictability of a Dragon, had offered to share the fate of any student who used
her teachings to transgress. So far, at least, Shosuro-sama had not made any attempt to turn that
against her.
She had even given Shomon this chance to demonstrate the value of her ways, to silence the
whispers of her critics. A dozen samurai stood around the dueling circle, waiting to see who would
prove the greater, Shomon or Gensato. They were too respectful of the duel to gossip, but the sound
of a fan snapping open cracked the stillness, shockingly loud. Hiroue didn’t look away from the
duelists, but he noted the offender from the corner of his eye: Bayushi Masanao. The man would
pay for that disturbance later.
Not that it had disturbed either of the duelists. Gensato even had a faint, cocky smile on his
face. It was on the governor’s orders that he had publicly disparaged Shomon’s style, saying that it
could not be worth much if ronin could learn it. Shomon would never have accepted a casual
invitation to a party at the governor’s mansion, but she could hardly refuse the chance to defend her
honor. According to the custom of iaijutsu, the upcoming strike would settle the dispute one way or
another.
Gravel crunched as one of the duelists shifted their foot, too minutely for Hiroue to see. He
found himself holding his breath in anticipation. It’s so much more interesting when I don’t know
how it will end.
There was no cue to move. He almost didn’t see it happen. The two duelists were standing
just out of blade’s reach; then there was a brief, explosive flurry of steel. When it ended, they were
on opposite sides of each other, swords out. The tableau held for a moment before Gensato relaxed
and bowed to Shomon. A small patch of darkness stained his left sleeve. “I stand corrected, Kitsuki-
san. Please accept my apology. You have truly shown me the strength of your blade.”

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 Like a proper Dragon, Shomon was too self-controlled to gloat. She returned his bow. “There
is nothing to forgive, Bayushi-san.”
The gathered observers murmured to one another, already discussing the political
implications of the duel. Shosuro-sama glided forward with a smile, ready to congratulate the victor.
Hiroue did not join them. As the governor’s guest, Shomon could not leave the party
immediately without giving insult. But he doubted she was the sort to enjoy Shosuro-sama’s
sophisticated entertainments, either. Sooner or later, she would seek out a quiet corner to regain her
peace of mind.
Retrieving his shamisen from a servant, Hiroue went to find a suitable corner, and wait.

The shamisen still lay in Hiroue’s hands, but many long minutes had passed since he last strummed
a note. The instrument had served its purpose, luring Shomon to find the source of the delicate music
floating through the nighttime peace of the governor’s gardens.
The place was lovely even in the spring darkness, but nothing compared to its splendor in
the daytime. Then again, perhaps it was just as well that Shomon was seeing the gardens only at
night. The peasants of Ryokō Owari referred to the governor’s lavish manor as “the house that opium
built”—although never where they thought a samurai could hear. They weren’t wrong, but the truth
was no defense against a samurai’s fury. Especially not in Scorpion lands.
Hiroue had been in the gardens many times before, but he found himself in unfamiliar
territory now. Ordinarily he had a well-practiced arsenal of tricks for occasions such as these: The
“accidental” brush of his layered sleeves against his target’s hand. Eye contact that lingered just an
instant too long for propriety, but not so long as to be off-putting. The gradual dropping of his voice,
until it rested comfortably in a low rumble that suggested the languor of the bedroom. Gestures that
drew attention to his hands—he had cultivated his musical talents in the direction of the shamisen
because it gave him a chance to display his most beautiful feature. He had deployed these tricks
against countless men and women, and very few of them had proved resistant to his charms.
With Shomon, he had abandoned that approach mere minutes into their encounter. Seducing
her might be possible, but it would take far longer than he could spare, and any attempt to rush the
process would only drive her away. Instead Hiroue had directed the conversation toward religious
matters—and he was getting trounced.

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 “‘Winds blow, nations change, fortunes rise and fall, but the simple folk will always be asked
to shoulder the weight,’” Shomon said, quoting the Tao. “And the Single Leaf Sutra reminds us that
the strength of a chain depends on its weakest link. If heimin are asked to shoulder so much weight,
should we not devote our efforts to making certain they are strong enough to bear it? Indeed, we
demand the merits of Bushidō from them in countless ways, only we do not give it that name. We
expect courage from ashigaru, duty and loyalty from laborers, reverence and courtesy when they are
in the presence of their superiors. Honesty is just as meritorious in a peasant as it is in a samurai.
But they lack instruction, and without knowing the pitfalls, how can they choose the correct path?”
Hiroue was fairly certain the last question was another allusion to the Tao. He would have
liked to respond in kind, but none of the quotations that came to mind pointed in the direction he
needed. Instead he was forced to resort to plain speech. “But the correct path of a heimin is different
from a samurai’s, is it not? What if, by instructing them in the precepts of Bushidō, you lead them
away from their proper dharma?”
She scoffed at the question. “Tell me where it serves the Empire for a peasant to be cowardly,
or cruel, or dishonest. The nature of their duty is different from a samurai’s, that I would not argue—
but virtue is virtue. And true virtue is the center from which all else proceeds.”
Hiroue almost smiled. He was no swordsman, but in conversation as in combat, there were
moments where the opponent’s guard slipped and left the perfect opening. “What of the notion that
we live in an age of declining virtue?”
He said it as a phrase rather than a proper name, Suijindai, but Shomon followed the
reference regardless. She came bolt upright on the bench. “Individuals may fall from the path of
honor,” she said, biting off each word, “but those who say that means honor itself has lost value are
only making excuses for their own weakness. The way of Bushidō was given to us by the Kami
Akodo himself, and it is a bulwark for our spirits regardless of the age. If we fall short of its ideals,
then we simply must strive all the harder to improve ourselves. As the Arrow Sutra says, ‘the path
across the plain is easy, the path to the peak hard; but only from the peak may we see far.’ To claim
the plain will lead one to a higher vantage point is nothing more than delusion.”
Her vehemence took him aback. Hiroue had seen the reports, patchwork and incomplete,
about the controversial sect that had taken root in Dragon lands. They called themselves the Perfect
Land, after the paradisiacal realm they claimed waited for believers after their deaths. One of their

100
core tenets was that Rokugan had entered the Age of Declining Virtue and that samurai were the
cause, having strayed from their proper path.
The reports spoke of peasant armies assembling in the mountains to the north. Here in Ryokō
Owari, Kitsuki Shomon openly trained heimin in hand-to-hand combat. It wasn’t difficult to imagine
she might have something to do with the sect. But judging by her reaction, the notion was nothing
more than that—imagination.
Still, he had to be sure. “Don’t the Dragon say there are many paths to the same destination?”
“Some paths are false ones,” Shomon snapped. “My own student—”
Hiroue flung up a hand before she could finish that sentence, looking past Shomon, into the
darkness of the gardens. “Hush! I hear someone.”
The gardens of the governor’s manor were quiet. The sounds of laughter and music from the
main building seemed very far away. After a moment, Hiroue lowered his hand and exhaled, tugging
the embroidered sleeves of his kimono back into place. “Please forgive me for interrupting you,
Kitsuki-san. I heard someone passing nearby and did not want them to misunderstand our
conversation, hearing only part of it.”
Shomon relaxed slowly. She had not reached for her blades, but he had no doubt she could
have drawn them in the blink of an eye if a real threat had emerged. “Thank you, Yogo-san,” she
said. Her voice was much softer now than it had been a moment before. “As you can tell, this is a
matter on which I feel passionately—but I should not allow that to make me speak without restraint.
It...” She hesitated, then went on. “It is a pleasure, and a rare one, to speak with a member of your
clan without feeling I am being manipulated like a puppet on strings.”
He pitied her. Kitsuki Shomon was a good and honorable soul; she did not belong in the City
of Lies, with its opium trade and its fireman gangs and its courtiers who knew there were ways and
ways of manipulating someone, not all of them obvious.
Then again, reflecting on what she had said concerning peasants and Bushidō... perhaps she
felt this was exactly where she needed to be. Bringing the light of honor to a place that saw it so
rarely.
If so, he wished the Fortunes’ blessings upon her. She would need them.
Shomon rose from the bench and bowed. “I have taken too much of your time,” she said.
“And I would not want to give offense to the governor by vanishing from her party for too long.”

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 Hiroue rose as well, laying aside his shamisen. “There is no need to apologize, Kitsuki-san.
I attend many of these parties, but I cannot say I’ve ever had a conversation quite like this one. You
have given me a great deal to think about.” He glanced toward the main building and contrived to
look a touch embarrassed. “I will wait here a while longer. If we were to return together, someone
might draw the wrong conclusions about where you have been—and what you have been doing.”
On any other night, with any other target, those conclusions might be correct.
But not tonight, and the consideration made Shomon smile. “Thank you,” she said fervently.
“Again.”
They exchanged bows one last time, and then she turned and made her way through the
gardens, back to the bright lanterns of Shosuro-sama’s party.
Hiroue waited until she had vanished inside, then sat down and began to play idly on the
shamisen. He truly did enjoy music, and the sound would mask his next conversation against any
prying ears that shouldn’t be nearby.
Not even one leaf rustled as Shosuro Miyako materialized by his side. She wasn’t dressed in
the stereotypical garb of a shinobi, but the muted grey of her jinbei blended seamlessly into the
darkness. Hiroue didn’t even know where she had been hiding. None of the stones or trees or bushes
looked large enough to conceal a woman, no matter how small and wiry. But then, he was not trained
for such things.
“Why did you interrupt her?” Miyako asked. “There wasn’t anyone approaching. And she
was on the verge of saying something about her student.”
Hiroue shrugged and turned one of the shamisen’s tuning pegs a minute degree. “We already
know about her student. They fought, and Satto left. According to current reports, she’s now very
highly placed in the Perfect Land hierarchy up north. Kitsuki-san’s gratitude is worth more to me
than any additional details she might have been able to offer about a woman she hasn’t seen in years.
You see, I have now shown myself to be that rare breed of Scorpion: a man she can trust.”
Miyako snorted softly. She worked in the shadows and Hiroue in the light, but that didn’t
make him any more honorable than she was. “So what was the point of this, then, if not to find out
more about Satto?”
“There have been suspicions that Kitsuki-san’s argument with her student was staged, and
that she’s been using her dōjō to recruit new followers to the Perfect Land, training them for
rebellion. If that were the case, it might indicate that the leadership of the Dragon Clan supports the

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Perfect Land in secret.” With any other clan, Hiroue would have dismissed the idea out of hand. The
preaching of the sect’s leaders challenged the very foundations of samurai dominance, blaming them
for the Empire’s mounting problems. But the Dragon tolerance for eccentricity often led in
surprising directions, and their clan champions had given some inexplicable orders in the past.
Hiroue could not put anything past them—not without investigating first.
This time, the investigation had led to a dead end. “She sounded sincere,” Miyako said.
Hiroue nodded. “I think she was.” Either that, or she’s a good enough liar that she should
be invited to teach our own students. “It doesn’t completely rule out Dragon support for the sect, of
course—but I think Kitsuki-san’s dōjō can be crossed off the list.”
“So what now?”
He laid one hand on the shamisen’s strings, silencing them. “Now...now you go north.”
Miyako was very good at stillness, but she turned to look at him. “My lord?”
“We know little about this sect, but what we do know worries me. I’m sending you to the
mountains. Disguise yourself as a peasant, infiltrate the sect, and get as close as you can to their
leaders. I want to know what their goals are, and whether they have ties to the Dragon beyond Satto
having trained with Kitsuki-san.” It could be useful leverage. The Scorpion could sell what they
knew, or offer to remove the threat...or, if necessary, create a spark in just the right place to turn this
pile of tinder into a wildfire. Whatever served their purpose best.
But only if they had more information.
Miyako bowed, lower than she ordinarily would. Her diction fell to match, into the speech
of a peasant. “I hear and obey, m’lord

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A dusty wind blew across the village of Kosō, a flyspeck on the western edge of the Empire. Shinjo
Tatsuo closed his eyes against the grit, but opened them as soon as he could. Until he established
whether there was any real cause for concern, he didn’t like the possibility that something might
sneak past him—or up on him.
When he opened his eyes, everything was quiet. After a swift glance around, he bent to study
the ground ahead of him, the land sloping down to a brush-filled hollow.
His ashigaru had fanned out to either side of him, likewise searching. In the distance he heard
a pair of voices, Iuchi Rimei questioning the bent old woman who led this village. He couldn’t make
out the words, but he didn’t need to. The phrase “superstitious peasants” had come up more than
once on their ride here. One might expect Rimei, as a shugenja, to credit spiritual explanations more
readily than the average samurai, but instead the reverse was true. To her way of thinking, all strange
sightings were wild animals or drunken farmers until proven otherwise.
Still, their patrol had to investigate the rumors. A dead pig, odd sounds in the night, and
movement seen in the distance, near the edge of the forest.
A flattening of the dry grass caught Tatsuo’s eye. He followed it to the brush, where he found
broken twigs littering the ground. No creature that large would have bothered to wade into the
brush...unless it was looking for a hidden place from which to observe the village.
Tatsuo’s sensei had, after several painful lessons, taught him to remain aware of all of his
surroundings, not just the trail in front of him. He straightened and turned before Rimei reached
him. “Don’t tell me you found something,” she said with the resignation of one who already
suspected the answer.

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 She’d been working with the patrol long enough that she knew to give his position a wide
berth, lest she trample the tracks. Tatsuo showed her what he’d discovered. “Doesn’t look human,”
he said. “Or if it was, they were dragging something.”
“Where does it lead?”
They followed the trail together, along a depression in the ground that would have concealed
the intruder from the village’s sight. This thing is intelligent, Tatsuo thought. On and on it went,
until he halted Rimei with a raised hand. “We should go back. Get the horses and ashigaru before
we continue.”
She squinted at him, raising one hand to keep the sun from her eyes. “Continue? We’re close
to the southern edge of our territory, and this thing is heading yet farther south. We should report
in, not chase it into lands that aren’t our responsibility.”
On paper, the lands to the south were Imperial possessions. In practice, virtually no one lived
out there except the occasional mad hermit or criminal fleeing justice. Neither of which were
supposed to be there—which meant no one was responsible for protecting them.
“What if it comes back?” Tatsuo countered. “I don’t know what this thing is, but it shows
signs of cunning. We were sent here to investigate; I won’t consider that done until I’ve found more
than just a trail.”
He outranked Rimei, but Tatsuo knew better than to dismiss her opinions out of hand. There
were two of them in this patrol for a reason. A shugenja saw things differently than a bushi did, and
ashigaru could hardly be expected to argue with samurai.
“How far, then? At what point will you say it’s time to abandon the trail?”
Tatsuo grinned. “We’re Unicorn, Rimei-san. What is there in this world that we cannot run
down?”

Rimei was too polite to make Tatsuo eat his words.

He could have blamed the ashigaru’s horses, which were of lesser stock than his Naegi and
Rimei’s Irugel. But the truth was that whatever they were following, it was fast. And like a gambler
trying to make good his losses, Tatsuo couldn’t bring himself to admit they should give up—even
as the leagues rolled by, one day after another, leading them south and south and south, following
the western edge of the Shinomen Mori.

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 The great forest was an emerald shadow to their left, primordial and wild, with untold secrets
hidden in its depths. Patrols like Tatsuo’s, the Shinomen Wayfinders, kept an eye on the forest’s
northern fringes in case anything emerged from it to trouble Unicorn lands. But even they rarely
ventured very far within. If the trail had dived into the heart of the Shinomen, Tatsuo would have
been forced to concede the chase. There were stories about what happened to people who risked the
forest’s power, and few of them ended well. He might come out a year later, or a century. Or not
come out at all.
But the trail kept to the edges, dodging among the sparser clumps of trees where the
Unicorn’s horses could follow without difficulty. As if the creature valued speed over concealment.
And though he expected Rimei to renew her arguments for giving up the chase and reporting in, the
farther they went, the more committed she became.
He found out why nearly a week into the pursuit, when he sat throwing knots of grass into
their tiny campfire and listing every creature he could think of that might be their quarry.
It was a short list. Animal spirits rarely moved with such purpose; hibagon never ventured
out of the forest; more malevolent things, like hungry ghosts or spirits of slaughter, would not leave
such a trail. When he came to the end of it, Rimei said, “Have you thought about where this thing is
going?”
Tatsuo paused in the middle of knotting more grass. “What do you mean?”
She nodded her chin along their line of march. “It isn’t chasing any other creature—none
that we’ve seen tracks for, at least. It isn’t wandering, the way it would if it were searching for
something. I think this thing knows where it’s going. And what’s to the south of us?”
Nothing of note, until one reached the Twilight Mountains. Home to the minor Falcon
Clan—and the Crab.
Who guarded Rokugan against the Shadowlands.
The wind picked up again, tugging the strands of grass from Tatsuo’s fingertips. There were
stories... the Moto had once sent an ill-fated expedition to the Shadowlands, trusting in their horses
and their blades to defeat whatever they found. The few who survived came back with their hair
bleached white from fear. Some people dismissed it all as exaggeration, but the Shinomen
Wayfinders had seen too many strange things for Tatsuo to do the same. The enemies the Crab faced
threatened more than just the body.

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 If some nightmare creature had found its way past the Kaiu Wall, it would discover in this
deserted western reach an easy road across the Empire to the territory of the Unicorn.
He focused once more on Rimei, heart suddenly beating fast. “Then we have to warn our
lord. If we vanish, they won’t realize the danger.”
“Right now it’s only a guess,” Rimei reminded him. “I have no proof. I’m not a Kuni; I don’t
know how to make the kami tell me whether the thing we’re following is corrupted. And none of
my talismans can help with that. If we raise the alarm and this turns out to be nothing serious...”
The Wayfinders already had a dubious reputation. As with the Crab, their reports were often
too outlandish for others to believe, because those others had never seen the Shinomen Mori with
their own eyes. Tatsuo knew he shouldn’t let the risk of embarrassment affect his decision, but
Rimei had a point. Right now they had nothing to report.
“Then we keep going,” he said. “But the moment we’re sure—”
She nodded. “I ride north.”
No question that she would be the one to go. Only a rare few could learn the language of
Names to command the kami; compared to her, Tatsuo was disposable. If it came to that, he would
hold the creature off for as long as he could.
As if she could hear his thoughts, Rimei said, “But let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that.”
Two days later, they saw smoke.
It came from within the forest, but not deep within, and it was too slender a column to be a
forest fire. The trail didn’t lead directly toward it, though, and he glanced at Rimei. “What do you
think?”
“We haven’t managed to catch this thing in a direct chase yet,” she said. “And they may
have seen something.”
If they’re human. Or spirits, he supposed; then it would be up to Rimei to talk to them. Except
that—Rimei shook her head before he could even speak. “Not yet.”
She was right. A fire wasn’t proof of anything. Rimei did not need to ride north yet.
They approached the edge of the forest. The trees here were ancient and tall, their trunks
bigger than Tatsuo and Rimei together could circle with their arms. Their roots fanned out in uneven
ridges, with ferns growing between that hid unexpected dips in the ground. Riding in there was just
asking to lame one of their horses. Tatsuo gestured at Tama, the youngest and least experienced of

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their ashigaru. “Wait here,” he said. “If we haven’t returned by sunset, ride north. Take my horse,
and use Irugel as a remount. Do you understand?”
The youth swallowed and nodded. The rest of the ashigaru dismounted with the samurai and
proceeded on foot.
They moved slowly, watching their footing as much as the forest around them, knowing that
a wrong step could result in a fall that would give their position away. Before long Tatsuo lost sight
of his companions, and considered trying to regroup. He wasn’t far from the source of the smoke,
though. Up ahead, three trees had staked out the top of a small rise. If he could get up there—
There was no sound, no movement he could see, no shift in the wind. Just the hairs on the
back of his neck rising.
He whirled and brought his bow up to full draw.
Only to find himself facing the point of another arrow. And behind it, a woman in armor,
muffled so it would make no noise, with her face painted to blend with the forest.
In the clipped accent of the Crab Clan, she said, “Name yourself before I put this arrow
through you.”

Given the reputation of the Shinomen Mori, Tatsuo was almost prepared to believe the sight in front
of him was an illusion crafted by some trickster spirit.
At least two dozen Crab Clan ashigaru were hard at work felling timber, supervised by a
hatchet-faced samurai with a loose roll of papers under his arm. They’d been at work for some time,
judging by the pile of logs laid to one side, and they hadn’t wasted any of the branches, either. The
excess had been transformed into a tidy palisade of fire-hardened stakes. It was a logging expedition,
clearly—but what was it doing in this ancient forest?
The Hiruma scout leading them into the camp wasn’t very talkative. She detached a group
of their own ashigaru to watch over his, then led Tatsuo and Rimei to her commander, who set aside
his papers as they approached. “Gunsō-san,” the scout said, with a brief bow. “These Unicorn were
scouting our camp.”
“We were investigating the smoke,” Tatsuo corrected her. “I am Shinjo Tatsuo, a gunsō of
the Shinomen Wayfinders, and this is Iuchi Rimei. We’ve been pursuing a creature that was sighted
outside a Unicorn village to the north, and thought that whoever was here might be able to offer
assistance.”

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 He was in charge of their patrol, but Rimei was responsible for handling spiritual matters,
and she broke in. “What are your people doing here, anyway? Logging in the Shinomen Mori—do
you have any idea what spirits you might anger? Do you have any way of controlling them?”
From behind them came another voice, touched with both humor and annoyance. “That
would be my job.”
Tatsuo turned to find a second man approaching. He wore no armor, but his hakama and
tied-back sleeves had none of the usual formality of a shugenja’s robes, either. If it weren’t for his
unsettling face paint, white with red lines, Tatsuo would never have identified him as a Kuni. The
newcomer eyed Tatsuo and Rimei and said, “Shinomen Wayfinders? I thought you Unicorn
preferred the open plains.”
“Our duties do not always take us where we prefer,” Tatsuo said stiffly, turning back to the
commander. “Please forgive Rimei’s blunt way of asking—but the question stands. I am glad to see
a shugenja with your group, but there are a great many dangers in this forest, and cutting down trees
is a quick way to wake them.”
The commander looked unmoved. “We know the risks. But as you say: our duties don’t
always take us where we want. Heki is taking care to appease the spirits of the trees before we cut
them.”
That must be the Kuni’s name. “Aren’t there trees in your own lands?”
“None that fit our needs,” he said. “I am Kaiu Shuichi, an engineer in the Twelfth Tower
Command. We need large beams to conduct repairs on the northern end of the Carpenter Wall, and
there’s nothing suitable closer to hand. We have Imperial permission to log here.”
No wonder the camp was so well constructed, with a Kaiu engineer in charge. But Tatsuo
had a feeling it wasn’t just normal Crab paranoia that made them take such precautions—a feeling
that grew stronger when Shuichi spoke again. “This creature you’re chasing. What is it?”
He asked as if he already had an answer in mind. And given Rimei’s suspicions, Tatsuo
couldn’t see any good reason to hold back. Courtiers might treat information like treasure, to be
hoarded and spent with care, but here in the hinterlands of the Empire, he preferred to reach out with
the hand of alliance. “We don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s large, and it leaves a broad, flat trail. And
it’s fast. We...the possibility has occurred to us that it might be something from...further south.” He
couldn’t quite bring himself to say Tainted.

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 “Impossible,” Shuichi said, without hesitation. Before Tatsuo could write it off as arrogance,
he added, “We have Kogoe scouting the vicinity constantly, and Heki alert for any sign of the
Shadowlands Taint.”
“But you have seen something,” Tatsuo said.
Shuichi glanced past him, at the Hiruma scout—Kogoe, presumably. She said, “Seen, no.
However, several of our laborers have gone missing. Mostly without a trace, but in one spot I found
a brief track that sounds like what you’re describing.”
“How long ago?”
“Six days.”
There was no way the creature Tatsuo had been chasing could have been here six days ago;
its trail wasn’t that old. Which meant there was more than one. “What do you mean, ‘a brief track’?”
“I don’t mean that I lost it,” she said evenly. “I mean that it stopped. And Heki doesn’t know
of anything that flies and leaves a track like that. Do you?”
“No,” Rimei admitted. “We were following our trail not far from here; we only diverted
because we saw the smoke from your fire. If we go back and pursue that, we may find the source of
both our problem and yours.”
That was optimistic of her, given their failure to chase the thing down yet, but Tatsuo was
even less willing than before to give up. He gazed past the palisade, into the forest. He was sure it
held the answers...if he was willing to risk getting them.
He’d already led his patrol far beyond the boundaries of his duty. And it was possible that
not one, but two clans were at risk from this unknown threat.
“Kaiu-san,” he said. “Obviously you have to devote most of your effort to protecting this
camp, which means you can’t spare much for exploring the nearby forest. But we’ve come all this
way to investigate, and are more familiar with the hazards of the Shinomen Mori than your own
people. I will lead my patrol on a circuit through the area—and if we find anything, we will share it
with you before we return north.”
“Gunsō-san!” Rimei stared at him. Her abrupt shift to formality showed how much the
suggestion alarmed her. It was one thing to ride south, but to go deeper into the forest...
Tatsuo shook his head. “Not you. If Kaiu-san is willing, I will have you remain here in his
camp, until we return.” Or until it was clear that they wouldn’t.

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 Her expression was mutinous. “How do you expect to deal with a spirit when you have no
shugenja with you?”
“I have no intention of engaging with it at all. We will scout only.” He knew as well as she
did that plans like that rarely worked out—but he wasn’t going to be responsible for losing her to
the forest.
Kuni Heki intervened. “If you stay here, Iuchi-san, we might be able to work together and
learn more from the spirits. And if your intention is to scout, Shinjo-sama—” He turned to his own
commander. “Could we lend him Kogoe-san?”
Tatsuo couldn’t deny she would be useful, given how effectively she’d crept up on him. He
bowed to Shuichi. “The reputation of the Hiruma is well known in Unicorn lands. I would be grateful
for the assistance.”
Shuichi nodded. “Find me what’s causing this, and find a solution.” He only had the
authority to command Kogoe, but he seemed to be addressing both scouts indiscriminately. “We
can’t afford to lose any more people or time.”

Tatsuo had to admit that Hiruma Kogoe was far more at home in the forest than he was. There were
trees in Unicorn lands, of course, and he’d been in and out of the fringes of the Shinomen Mori for
years—but his ancestors made their home on the plains, and he never felt comfortable being
hemmed in like this.
She didn’t know nearly as much about the Shinomen as he did, though. “There aren’t a lot
of friendly things where I usually patrol,” she admitted after she nearly shot a rabbit spirit. It faded
away an instant before her arrow would have struck. “We’re trained to assume anything we see is
probably dangerous.”
“Wayfinders learn the same thing,” Tatsuo said, “but we generally try to avoid confrontation.
In the Shinomen, ‘dangerous’ and ‘needs to be killed’ aren’t always the same thing. Most creatures
in the forest will leave you alone if you don’t trouble them.”
“When we find this thing,” Kogoe said darkly, “I’m not giving it the benefit of the doubt.”
He couldn’t blame her. But it would be a moot point if they couldn’t find the creature. Or
creatures—however many of them there were.

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 Kogoe was the one who figured it out in the end, proving his sensei’s admonition once more.
Stopping Tatsuo with one outstretched hand, she breathed a few words, almost too quiet to hear. “I
think they move through the trees.”
Once he looked for it, he saw it, too. Fallen leaves and twigs on the ground, and up above,
branches stripped suspiciously bare. It could have been hibagon, the reclusive ape-men who haunted
the forest—but they swung by their arms, and wouldn’t leave this kind of damage. Without a word,
he nocked an arrow to his bow. Kogoe did the same.
Not long after, they heard a sound up ahead. Not the chattering of animals or their spirit kin,
and not the weeping of some creature in the form of a woman or a baby, hoping to lure the unwary
to their doom. Two different sounds, alternating with one another—like voices in conversation. But
the cadence of it was nothing like Rokugani.
He and Kogoe separated, so that if one of them were spotted the other could attack or escape.
And then, placing one careful foot at a time, Tatsuo crept forward.
The voices were coming from a small dell with a quiet, shadowed pool at the center. Two
tall boulders stood alongside the pool, narrow outcroppings from some larger mass of stone below—
One of the boulders moved.
Not stone. A creature—two of them—each easily fifteen feet in length, rearing up from their
long tails. They were speaking in a hissing, liquid language like nothing Tatsuo had heard before.
Perhaps his nerve failed him at this crucial moment, faced with a pair of giant serpent
creatures that his mind screamed must have come straight from the Shadowlands. Tatsuo didn’t
think he’d made a sound...
But one of them stopped talking, and turned to look directly at him.

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Curling wisps of smoke escaped the jaws of the stone lion, heavy with the scents of cinnamon and
sandalwood. Matsu Tsuko inhaled deeply, fighting off a cough that threatened to interrupt the deep,
solemn chanting. This was her world now: the darkened tent; the funeral chants; the haze of the
incense; and the helmet in her hands, its metal warmed by her constant touch. As a child, she had
dreamed of holding something so precious as part of the ancestral armor of the Lion Clan. A wish
wreathed her heart, insubstantial as the smoke, that she could give it back, for Arasou to still be
wearing it proudly.
Akodo Arasou, Champion of the Lion Clan and the man she would have married, lay on a
pallet before her, clad in spotless white funerary robes, right side folded crisply over the left, hands
folded over his still chest. The armor he should have been wearing stood like a hollow, headless
corpse in the corner, following the body of its former owner like a ghost until his burial. Tsuko’s
fingers tightened on the only piece of it that would not be passed along, her right thumb resting on
the curled metal where the arrow had exited, even as her gaze rested on the cloth covering her
beloved’s eyes.
The snap of Doji Hotaru’s bow. Arasou’s body in my arms, turned to face the sky—one eye
sightless, the other a ruin—and the false tears in Hotaru’s own eyes as she turned and fled back
into Toshi Ranbo, the city the faithless Crane had stolen. Toturi staring at Hotaru’s exit, slow and
numb as he ever was, watching uselessly as his brother’s murderer ran and closed the gates behind
her—
“Tsuko-sama!” A voice broke into her thoughts, tinged with concern. “Your hand...”

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 Tsuko looked down suddenly, pain breaking through the hot haze of her fury, and she pulled
her hand away from the helmet. A deep cut, torn from the ragged edge of the helmet’s ruin, ran
along the meat of her right thumb and wept a red tear along her arm. She gave a small sigh of
annoyance and took the cloth her companion handed to her, nodding in thanks.
Kitsu Motso tilted his head sympathetically. “All good Lion mourn the death of Akodo
Arasou. While I do not wish to speed his journey to Yōjin no Shiro further than protocol demands,
I do worry that you torment yourself with this delay.”
Tsuko finished wrapping the small injury and stood, shaking her head. “That pain is the fire
that forges my rage into something useful, Motso-san.”
Motso’s smile was barely a suggestion. “You are crafting some weapon, perhaps? A sword
of agony, and great blade of the Lion?”
Tsuko let out a bitter chuckle as she placed the helmet back on its stand. “One is desperately
needed. Even in death, Arasou has more direction than his brother.” Her fingers lingered against the
metal a moment, and she shut her eyes against any tears that might arrive. There will be justice. It
will consume those who took you from me. She opened her eyes again, fixing an intense gaze on
Motso, and even he seemed discomfited by its heat. “Until the Osari Plains are reclaimed from the
Crane’s clutches, I cannot rest—and neither can his spirit.”
As servants busied themselves clearing the vestiges of the service, Tsuko exited the tent,
Motso at her heels, to the welcome sound of an army preparing for war. Organized lines of Lion
troops conducted near-constant drills with swords, spears, bows, and even hand-to-hand. All our
lives, we of the Lion practice war. How many of us have truly faced it? How many would run bravely
forth, as the greatest of us once did, and how many would hesitate as others died? Her face grew
even grimmer. They must drill until thought and action are one—empty of indecision and fear, full
of determination. They shall not fail as Toturi did. Her gaze was fire. As I shall not.
The pair had almost reached the officers’ tents when a young Matsu bushi approached them,
a strange look in her eyes somewhere between joy and worry. “Forgive this interruption, my lady,
but there are a group of rōnin waiting to speak with you. They say they captured Shirei Mura!”
Kitsu Motso gave a small sound of curiosity. Beside him, Tsuko stiffened and frowned.
“Rōnin? Who hired them?”
The bushi glanced around uneasily, and lowered her voice until it was hardly audible. “They
said the Lion Clan did, my lady.”

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 Tsuko’s mouth drew into a thin line. “Motso-san—go to these rōnin and tell them to wait
outside my tent. I will receive them when I am ready.” Her gaze held a quiet heat. “And continue
the preparations for battle tomorrow.”
Tsuko didn’t wait around to see Motso deal with the rōnin, or even to dismiss the awkward
young bushi, instead stalking directly into her tent. Servants looked up, startled at the look on the
woman’s face, but obeyed with quick, respectful nods at her demands to start a fire and bring out
preparations for tea. As her attendants hurried about their tasks, another servant helped Tsuko don
her armor. The lioness’s eyes were fixed not on the bindings, but on the flint and steel clicking
sparks into the hungry kindling.
Rōnin. A wince fluttered over her features as her new wound twitched while she laced a
greave. I was not told of this. And if Motso had heard of such a command, he gave no sign. He is
already acting against Toturi’s orders by riding with me now, enabling my delay to lay Arasou to
rest. This is not him. A spark caught, and a small flame leaped, sending the scent of burning rice
stalks into the air, dried refuse from the fields around them. Neither is this Toturi’s doing. Even he
is not so without honor as to hire rōnin—or more likely, he is not so decisive.
A sudden hiss escaped her lips, and she looked down to see blood spotting the cloth over her
wound. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Tsuko unbound and washed the cut, binding it again
with deliberate care. She moved to pick up her helmet, but paused, her hand against its white mane,
then left it sitting on the rack. I shall see these rōnin plainly, and hear their say.
“Show them in,” she ordered, and went to stand near the fire as the servants bowed and
exited the tent. A short time later, the tent flap opened, and four people—one in the lead, and the
other two dragging a bound and hooded prisoner—stepped inside. The leader immediately regarded
Tsuko with a grin, and flourished a bow that was both too low and too ungraceful. A man unused to
dealing with authority.
“Lady Tsuko, fearsome daimyō of the Matsu, I greet you,” the rōnin declared, his tone as
oily as his thin dark hair and white-touched mustache. “I am Kujira, master of the Warriors of the
Boar, and I have two gifts for you today. First among them is Shirei Village, captured by myself and
my troops. And the second—” He jerked his head at his attendants, who unceremoniously dragged
forth the prisoner to stand beside Kujira. “—is this fine specimen.”
With a flourish he yanked off the hood of the fourth figure, causing a mess of long white
hair to spill everywhere. Tsuko’s heart stopped for a moment, and she hardly realized she had her

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hand on the hilt of her sword before she recognized the individual. Not Doji Hotaru, but Kuwanan,
her brother. Why in Heaven’s name is he here?
Kujira’s rough bleating laughter jarred her out of the moment. “Never fear, Matsu-sama, this
one had the fight knocked pretty well out of him, and I tied those bonds myself,” he snorted, tucking
his thumbs under the rough leather belt that held his ill-fitting armor onto his wide frame. “Even a
large bird breaks easily when you batter it around a bit, eh?”
Tsuko stepped forward, her dark eyes locking onto Kuwanan’s pale ones. Though strong and
heavyset, the heir to the Crane Clan had seen better days. The hitched breathing told of at least one
broken rib, and bruises spotted vivid purple on his skin. He wore a simple set of pale garments and
armor padding, both stained with grime and splattered with blood.
“A skillful capture, to take him alive,” Tsuko found herself saying, not removing her eyes
from Kuwanan’s. “And you say you took the village as well?”
“Aye, hardly lost a man in the fight, too.” Kujira snorted, obviously proud of himself. “Sent
a group of my best thunderin’ in on their horses, got the peasants and a mess of Crane troops scared
inside the walls. This one and a few of his archers hung out to cover their retreat...and they didn’t
do so bad, either, killed more’n their fair share! But archers don’t outrun horses so well, especially
when we had our own in those fields, disguised as farmers. He and his troops didn’t even see my
men coming before we had them netted like honking geese. After that it was just a simple matter of
finding who was worth your time, and killing the rest.”
Tsuko’s eye twitched, but her gaze didn’t waver. “And the village?”
Kujira’s voice grated like cicadas in summer. “That was the best part. Got half my men into
the dead Crane gear, tied up the rest like prisoners. Called up to the villagers like we was
successful—another bit of cunning, getting the Crane pass-phrases for safe travel—and once we had
them all together, we killed every Crane we could find and any peasant stupid enough to try and
hide ’em. Maybe one or two got away, but that just lets the Crane learn how badly they were beaten
by the Lion...and the Warriors of the Boar.”
One of the rōnin holding Kuwanan snickered, and his half-toothed smile grew wider as
Tsuko’s sword left its sheath with a slow song of oiled metal. The Crane samurai did not flinch,
even as Kujira gave a dark chuckle. “Figured you might wanna ransom him, or we would’a done
the job for you—but then again, I heard what his sister did to your man. Not a bad idea, trading a
death for a death.”

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 Tsuko’s eyes searched Kuwanan’s. No fear, rage, or false tears lived in them. Just an
intensity, watching her as she did him, waiting. Tsuko glanced at Kujira, whose nose seemed to be
twitching in anticipation of bloodshed. “The Warriors of the Boar,” she said slowly. “Not named
for the lost Boar Clan, I would imagine.”
Kujira looked confused a moment, then guffawed. “What? There was a Boar Clan?” The
large rōnin shook his head, armor clanking. “We’re just ‘boar’ for wealth—of which we certainly
got our share in this shakeup, believe it. Not a lot of Crane to go around, but those pretty little
weapons of theirs kill just as well. And while them peasants don’t have much, those sneaky bastards
got prizes hidden where you least expect it.” The half-toothed rōnin started to chuckle darkly as
Tsuko placed the blade of her sword against Kuwanan’s shoulder.
“You were correct about one thing, leader of the Warriors of the Boar,” she said pointedly.
“There is a death that will set things on a better path.”
The big man grinned—which lasted, eerily, even after Tsuko’s strike, which opened up his
neck almost to the spine.
The other rōnin cried out in horror as Kujira’s body slumped to the ground, blood pooling
in dark clouds against the dirt. In an instant, Tsuko’s blade was leveled at them, and they held up
their hands in surrender.
“Spare us!” howled the half-tooth. “I don’t wanna die!”
“Neither did the people of Shirei Mura, but I’m sure you slew them all the same.”
“Please,” pleaded the young rōnin to the left, who hardly looked past boyhood. “I swear,
we’re not all like Kujira was. Not all of us plundered!”
Tsuko fixed him with a long look. “Then you are responsible for finding Kitsu Motso,
making certain all of your troops surrender to him, and returning all that you have stolen. Those
who have committed violence against the people of Lion lands—and Shirei Mura is of the Lion—
must suffer the appropriate penalties.” The young rōnin nodded, and he and his whimpering
companion swiftly exited the tent, dragging the remains of the boastful Kujira behind them.
The tent flap had barely closed before the blade sang through the air a second time,
separating rope fibers with a precise and dangerous grace. Kuwanan glanced downward as the bonds
fell from his arms and slowly rubbed at his bruised wrists. Tsuko pointed her blade to a space at the
side of the tent, separated by a paper screen. “Water there, and clean clothes. Do as you will.”

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 When Kuwanan finally stepped from behind the screen, sand had been scattered across the
bloody ground until such time as they could repitch her tent. Tsuko sat next to the brazier, sipping
at a cup of tea. She gestured to a camp stool across from her, and wordlessly watched Kuwanan sit,
mindful of his wounds, and gratefully take the tea in his hands. It was a long moment—punctuated
only briefly by small sips of the beverage and the crackle of the flames—before anyone spoke.
“Why did you spare me?” said Doji Kuwanan carefully.
Tsuko took her eyes from the teacup to meet his. “Your capture was an act of trickery, a vile
deception against you. I would not answer that with more dishonor.” She took a long sip of tea, and
pride strengthened her voice like steel. “The Lion do not deceive, or steal. We take what we want
by strength of honor, or not at all.”
She regarded him carefully before taking another drink. “And I am not a beast that I should
kill any Crane I encounter off the battlefield. I should sooner hate a sword for the actions of its
wielder, or blame an arrow”—she cursed herself inwardly for her sudden cough, her throat smarting
from too large a sip of the tea—“...an arrow for where its archer sent it.”
Another long moment of quiet stretched across the tent, which Kuwanan again broke. “I am
deeply sorry for Ara—for the death of Akodo-sama.” The man’s voice was halting, strange coming
from someone so well-built. “I trained with him, admired his skill and courage.” The man’s gaze
slid towards the flames of the brazier, his tone bitter. “You are not the only one who is angry at a
wrongful death, Tsuko-sama.” Her nod was slow, understanding.
“It is still unknown how he died, then? Your father—forgive me—Champion Doji
Satsume?”
“There is belief by some that my sister’s assertions of natural causes are enough.”
Kuwanan’s tone was stretched as the skin on a drum. “But honor demands more, simply as a matter
of course. If we do not hold to Bushidō...”
“We are little better than the rōnin I slew,” finished Tsuko, finishing her cup of tea. “I know
too well why Toturi did not act in the battle of Toshi Ranbo—he is weak, and foolish. But if Hotaru
can accept the horrible duty of the Crane Clan Champion and kill Akodo Arasou...what is preventing
her from performing her more important duty: investigating your father’s untimely death?”
Kuwanan’s gaze dropped from Tsuko’s, into the depths of his teacup. The silence hung
around them like a haze of smoke, and Tsuko’s eyes returned to the flames in the brazier before her.

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Deliberately, she prodded the glowing coals with a metal rake, small sparks hissing in different
directions.
Damn this feeling of unease, she snarled inwardly. Were it that I had met this Crane on the
battlefield—to see our forces surge around and consume them, and been done with it. To have taken
Shirei Mura back myself, and made the Crane pay for their presumption in blood!
Her hand twitched, and Tsuko’s gaze fell on the gore-spattered floor near the tent flap. Vile
rōnin. Striking at our enemy in Lion’s name—and supposedly paid from our coffers? Her rage itched
at her, insistent as a hungry flame. Why would we sink so low to hire such scoundrels? And why
would they know who Kuwanan was when they captured him—and why not simply ransom him
themselves? What else were they trying to gain—she swallowed a snarl—or what is someone trying
to take from me?
Beneath the tines of the rake, the flames in the brazier were slowly dying. The sounds of a
far greater fire—the readying of her army for war—echoed beyond the cloth of her tent.
She could not kill Doji Kuwanan, not now.
But she could meet him again on the fields of battle and settle this score in honorable combat,
avenging Arasou, reclaiming the Osari Plains, and proving herself Toturi’s better.
Or she could send Kuwanan to Hotaru, where he could confront his sister for her failure of
Bushidō and potentially help Tsuko uncover the identity of those who were playing them all as
pawns.
Duty and Loyalty demanded she avenge Arasou’s death. Righteousness demanded she bring
the deceivers to justice.
The very honor of the Lion was at stake, and it fell to her to uphold it, even if Akodo Toturi
would not.

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Hiruma Shizuyo didn’t set her camp until the shadows of the parched landscape no longer matched
whatever cast them. Even her own shadow was tall and branched, like a flawed oak stripped to the
bark.
This was the game the Shadowlands played.
She sorted her supplies and numbered her cache of arrows with paper blessings tied to their
shafts. She left everything on the cart and released the ox to return to the Wall without her. As she
watched it go, her fingers brushed the smooth jade pendant hanging from her neck—the one thing
that wasn’t expendable.
She spent the day setting bell-adorned tripwires and driving standing torches into the cracked
ground around the camp. Memorizing the terrain would be futile; it would just shift when she looked
away. Only the landmarks she left would remain consistent.
When the sun touched the west horizon, she lit the torches, nose wrinkling at the scent of
fish oil and pine. Aching from a day spent in armor, she started a campfire by her tent and planted
her tetsubō like a banner. Fair warning. Then, facing the south, she sat and waited.
The wind was barely audible beneath the sliver of pale indigo moon. Nothing stirred beyond
her bubble of campfire light, not even the sparse patches of dead grass. After a time, she pulled a
stack of cards from her satchel and shuffled them. She dealt herself a single card from the bottom
of the deck. An ink-wash depiction of a barbed tapeworm, a diamond of white space forming an
inhuman mouth, leered at her from the card.
“Tsumunagi,” she said. “Hides in supplies. Kill with fire or smother with jade oil.”

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 The next card off the bottom revealed a hulking creature of muscle and sinew, a yawning
toothy mouth where its head should have been.
“Kanu’s Oni. Engage from afar. Use jade arrows, or exploit the narrow windpipe.”
Another card. A segmented shell and a mass of cockroach limbs capped with human hands.
“Gokimono. Once human. Compelled to extinguish lights. Kill with—”
A bush warbler’s whistle rose from beyond her camp. By the end of the trill, it was a human
voice, mournful in its wordless cry. Shizuyo raised her eyes. No movement except the flickering
shadow of her tetsubō. She inched closer.
Another card. A splotchy human walking in splintered armor, one eye just an empty socket.
“Hyakuhei. Animated corpse.” She stared into the dancing flames. “Kill as you would a
man.”

Shizuyo ignored her spine’s dull ache and the burn beneath her eyelids as she prodded the traps
beneath a morning sun painted a sick shade of purple. An uneventful night spent in her armor left
her limbs heavy and stiff. Her body cried for sleep, but it wouldn’t be safe until the hour furthest
from the Hour of Ox—the hour sometimes written as the Hour of Fu Leng.
Only one trap had caught something: a trembling white and tan fluff with slender ears. The
rabbit was tangled in the sling, helpless. It cast Shizuyo a pleading look.
She narrowed her eyes.
The hare twitched, as if trying one last time to wrench free. She slammed her tetsubō down.
There was a wet crunch, like a stomped kabocha squash. She exhaled until any remorse was gone.
It was better to be certain.

The campfire had seen Shizuyo identify thirty-five creatures in her demon deck before a tinny bell
clatter broke the silence. In the night beyond, one of the pin-prick torches blinked out.
She strung her bow and collected her arrows. In the distance, something skittered into the
light of the next torch. Before the light was extinguished, she barely caught sight of spindly
cockroach limbs and human hands.
A cold gasp froze her. The creature had come from the south, the direction of the caravan.
Her fingers found her pendant. The jade would kill it. Just one touch...
No. Not if this was it.

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 Shizuyo readied an arrow and pointed at the next-closest torch. She counted to five, then
released. The torch went dark. Something screamed.
Another arrow found it at the next-nearest torch. In the one after, she saw the arrow shafts
protruding from its glossy plates. Five torches yet to go. Then would be the campfire. And then...
Another arrow. Then another. Again and again. Now it scrambled, faster, closer. Its outline
grew against the night sky, blotting out the stars with its darkness. Her racing heart tightened as she
launched the last arrow as the final torch, a mere hundred feet away, went suddenly dark.
A shriek. A dull thud. Silence.
Shizuyo carried a piece of the campfire to the horror’s motionless body. The arrows were
deeply embedded, their written blessings now blank scraps. She could recover none.
She held her breath as she finally brought her makeshift torch to where the killing arrow
protruded from the eye of its human face.
It wasn’t him.
She tossed the torch onto the body and returned to camp.

Shizuyo startled awake. Ashes floated against a midday sky. She spat a curse. An entire morning
wasted, no time to replace the used traps. She cannibalized the cart for firewood as the sun dragged
a crimson path into the western ridge. Then she lit the remaining torches. Even with the soreness in
her bones, it didn’t take long.
Hours dragged in silence, and the campfire slowly ate away at itself. Firelight glinted along
the jade pendant as she turned it over. The dreamlike image of the hare slipped into her mind—its
prone body and desperate eyes. She shook her head and the vision tumbled away. Maybe it had
really been a hare. Maybe it hadn’t. The only way to be sure was to use her jade.
A faint bell. One of her surviving traps, far from the remaining torches. Again. She frowned.
She took her tetsubō and stepped into the dark.
The trap was triggered, but there was nothing there. Her fingers brushed clawed grooves in
the dirt, numbing with slow realization.
She spun around and sprinted back to the campfire, but she was too late. Her tent blackened
in the fiery column, her supplies crackling in the heat. She gritted her teeth at the high-pitched
laughter. Goblinoid forms dancing around the flames, their spindly shadows entwined. Bakemono.
Three of them. One tossed her cards into the fire with her remaining torches. It laughed again.

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 She caught up to it and smashed it with her tetsubō. It went silent.
The remaining two turned, wide-eyed gazes flicking from Shizuyo to their dead comrade.
They shrieked.
Her fingers slipped from the tetsubō handle as one charged into her, knocking her backward.
Her armor cracked and the wind was pushed from her lungs. Claws raked her cheek as the thing
shrieked, again and again. Her hand darted to her hip, but her wakizashi’s sheath was empty. She
grit her teeth and tore the frenzied thing away, hurling it into the bonfire. Screams pierced the night.
She started to roll to her feet, but the last goblin leapt into her chest. Her blade flashed in the
creature’s hands, slicing through her armor swing by swing. She reached for her tetsubō, but she
could only graze the handle. The goblin arched its back, mangled blade above its head, readying a
death blow. It roared in triumph.
The jade pendant. She had no choice. She tore it free and crammed it into the creature’s
maw.
The goblin flailed, shrieking, clawing its face, as if a burning coal were in its mouth. With
new energy, Shizuyo lunged for her tetsubō. Spinning, she brought it down. The goblin’s head broke
like an egg.
Ragged breaths shook her. The pendant was now black, oozing in its ruined jaw.
She smashed its face again. And again. Over and over, until she had only the strength to
curse the Fortunes.

It wasn’t until dusk that movement on the southern horizon caught Shizuyo’s gaze: a thin silhouette
limping slowly toward her camp’s charred remains, its navy blue cloak tattered and stained. Human.
She rose, watching his slow progress, her heart beating in tandem with his heavy steps.
He didn’t look up until the sun was nearly gone, twilight painting the landscape in purple
hues. He froze, spotting her, just a short distance away. His cracked lips parted.
“Mother?”
His eyes, amber like his father’s, lit up. The tattered cloak fell as he ran. “Mother! Thank the
gods! I thought I would never see you again!”
She narrowed her eyes.
He slowed to a stop, confusion flickering across his face. The tetsubō handle pressed against
her palm.

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 “Mother? What are you...?” He shook his head. “It’s me, Mother! Hiruma Kenjirō. Your
son!”
She did not react.
His amber eyes searched the ground. “We never reached Hiruma Castle. I’m the only one
left. I was determined to survive, to see Yukino again. She is well, yes?” He smiled weakly. “We’re
getting married in spring. Remember? You insisted on spring...”
Her chest was like a rope twisted too tight. Insects were screaming. The sun bled over the
peaks. She didn’t recognize his shadow. She didn’t recognize hers.
His smile faded. “T-take me to the Kuni shugenja,” he stammered. “I am well! I can prove
it.” He reached for her with pleading eyes. “Mother—”
She slammed the tetsubō into his face. His skull crumpled like a hollow shell. He fell.
Her shadow blanketed his prone body. He jerked, as if trying to see from his now-empty
socket. His wet scream broke the night.
The tetsubō came down. Then, only her shuddering heart made any sound.

Shizuyo cradled jade beads as the Kuni shugenja with red and white face paint plucked a black
thread from her hair and held it taut beneath his flaring nostrils. Cavalry Master Hida Tsuru sat
before her with crossed arms. She lingered on the courtyard gates, lungs nearly bursting from her
held breath.
“Is it done?”
She nodded.
“Are you sure?”
She raised her expressionless gaze. “I made certain.” The wind carried specks of ash across
the red sky. Somewhere, a bonfire was burning.
The Kuni snatched the beads and raked a prolonged look over her palms. She didn’t flinch.
At last, he let her go. “No sign of the taint, Tsuru-sama. Even so, she should be quarantined at the
shrine for seven days of cleansing.”
“Make the arrangements.”
After the shugenja left, Tsuru offered Shizuyo a thin scroll. She accepted it with limp fingers.
Inside was her son’s new name, the name they would use whenever they remembered him. His old
name was tainted now.

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 “My condolences,” he said. “We will erect a marker in his memory. Although the caravan
never reached its destination, you should be proud. He died serving the Crab Clan.” He rose to leave.
“It looked just like him.”
He paused.
She wavered. “It had his voice. It... knew things.” Again, she met his gaze. “It even called
me ‘mother.’”
“That is the game the Shadowlands plays. It wears the faces of our loved ones to sow our
hearts with doubt. But that thing was a pretender. It could not have been human.” Kneeling again,
Tsuru laid his hand on her shoulder. “After all, if it was repelled by the burning pine inside the
torches, recoiled from your arrows, and burned at the touch of your jade, then it could not have been
your son.” Before her paling face, he gave a reassuring smile. “At least of that, you can be certain.”

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It took one of the embers snapping beneath the pressure of the iron rake—a little crack and a feather
of flame—to break Matsu Tsuko out of her reverie. She did not start or flinch, but she could tell
from the slight shift of the man across from her that the change in her demeanor did not go unnoticed.
Her eyes flicked again to the edge of the room, near the tent flap, and fell on the hastily
strewn sand scattered across a pool of blood half-soaked into the earth. That blood had been—until
very recently—inside the body of a detestable rōnin named Kujira, who had committed dishonorable
acts to capture both the village of Shirei Mura and the prisoner across from her. A band of rōnin
hired by Lion to butcher a Lion village, she thought, and her teeth were set on edge. That cannot be.
She dared a look at the man, who was making a quiet show of finishing his tea from a cup
that had been empty for several minutes now: though trained by so many clans, Doji Kuwanan was
still a Crane, and she suspected his heart would fail him before his politeness did.
A sudden gust of wind stirred the tent flap, and Tsuko felt her eyes fixing on the image
painted upon it—a lion stalking through the tall grass. They were lions here, on the Osari Plains,
stalking and running down their prey, reclaiming what was theirs.
“I do not know who hired those rōnin,” Tsuko admitted aloud, her eyes locking with
Kuwanan’s. “And I do not even know if I was expected to care. I have a suspicion I was meant to
kill you, that someone thought my rage would demand it.” She breathed deeply, and squeezed the
wound on her right hand to remind her of that cost, the pain a steadying force. “Someone has treated
us as pawns.”
Doji Kuwanan’s face darkened suddenly, but resolved into confusion as he fought away any
hint of insult. “You are certain?”

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 Tsuko pursed her lips. “It is the uncertainty of the situation that gives me pause,” she said
carefully. “I did not know you would be at Shirei Mura—I don’t know if any of the Lion did, or at
least they did not see fit to tell me. And I knew nothing of these rōnin, either. It was expected that
I... that I would be going to Yōjin no Shiro, to bury my betrothed. But...” Anger flared in her at the
memory of the meeting in the war pavilion after the disaster at Toshi Ranbo. The denunciation of
Matsu Agetoki, of Akodo Toturi’s condescension—to her pain and not to her point—and even Kitsu
Motso’s own reluctance to engage.
“I imagine that few believed I would simply obey and travel straight there,” Tsuko
continued. “Someone might have assumed well enough that the Osari Plains would be foremost in
my attentions.”
“And revenge,” added Kuwanan quietly. Tsuko nodded slowly, and he looked down a
moment, digesting this, and shook his head in disgust. “To use your grief—and at the death of so
great a man—is reprehensible.” There was a long silence, stretched like a fading wisp of smoke.
“So, what would you have us do?” he finally asked.
“My duty is to my people, to my clan, and to my champion,” she admitted. “I am bound to
this. To rid the rōnin from Shirei Mura, to travel to Yōjin no Shiro and lay Akodo Arasou to rest,
and finally—to return and reclaim the Osari Plans as Lion lands.
“But right now, your life is at my mercy.” Kuwanan bristled slightly, but she raised a hand
for understanding, and he relaxed. “We both honor Bushidō. And we respect each other. And as you
hate the idea of me being used as a pawn, so do I loathe that you may be as well.
“I ask you to address the demand of your heart, and to answer for yourself the question you
could not answer for me.” She felt the heat rise on her face as her fist clenched and pain shot up her
arm. “Ask Doji Hotaru, Champion of the Crane Clan, killer of my beloved—ask your sister why she
does not do as duty demands and investigate the death of your father.”
Tsuko took a deep breath. “A storm of strange fates has brought us together. But if someone
believes you have a question to ask that carries a danger to it even being voiced...” Her eyes bored
into Kuwanan’s. “Then perhaps someone saw worth in trying to have you silenced.”

The stars had begun to show their faces when Matsu Tsuko and Doji Kuwanan exited the tent, the
latter clad as a simple merchant, straw hat drawn low, his telltale white hair bound up and away
from view. The horse he mounted was perhaps too fine a specimen for an ordinary merchant, and

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the rider’s bearing too proud, but Tsuko hoped he would reach his destination before anyone grew
overly suspicious.
“This arrangement is still very odd,” Kuwanan admitted as he slid into the saddle with a
wince, “but I understand its wisdom. Friend or foe, perhaps it is best I remain unseen.”
“It is strange for me as well,” Tsuko admitted, passing over the reins of the animal. “But our
cause is righteous. You will disappear from Shirei Mura—”
“And appear in Kyūden Kakita with a tale of escaping my foolish rōnin captors,” Kuwanan
finished. “I am no playwright, but I should have a serviceable story assembled by the time I reach
the city. And I know someone with an even greater talent for words who will be waiting for me at
the castle.” Tsuko nodded, barely perceptible in the low light, and another pause followed: a familiar
tempo.
“Farewell, Tsuko-sama,” Kuwanan said at last.
“Sayonara, Kuwanan-sama.”
She watched his retreating figure until it was lost from sight and the soft echo of hoofbeats
had vanished into the night air. In his retreat, an image rose unbidden to Tsuko’s mind: a swallow
with its tail on fire, returning in panic to its home—only to set the whole of it ablaze.
A dark part of her wondered how the conflagration would begin, even as she dimly hoped
Kuwanan would be smart enough to survive it. And if those flames would be enough to burn away
the artifice of their enemies.

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“First, I know that you are a wise man, and I wish the world to share that wisdom. I am certain that
you can bring the dead to life on our wedding day.”
Doji Shizue stopped and frowned. Her delivery was perfect, but the gesture with the fan
needed work. At this point in the story Doji-no-Kami was scornful of Kakita, but her heart would
soon turn toward him, and her telling had to reflect that. When one had the opportunity to tell stories
for an Imperial prince, only perfection would do.
Over and over she practiced, the fan sweeping through the air like a graceful bird, until she
found the exact path that simultaneously expressed Lady Doji’s grace and subtle condescension.
“Second, I know you are a knowledgeable man...” A discreet knock on the frame of the door
interrupted her, and Shizue fought the impulse to throw her fan at the door. How could she practice
amidst all these distractions?
“I am very sorry Shizue-sama,” the servant in the hallway said. “But two letters have just
arrived—they are from your siblings.”

The temple to Fukurokujin, the Fortune of Wisdom, was the same as it had always been, with
polished wood gleaming in candlelight and the scent of incense heavy in the air. As Shizue walked
to the inner sanctuary, the weight of long centuries of prayer and meditation settled around her like
armor, but the words contained within the two letters stung like an open wound.
Shizue stopped before the gilded image of the Fortune and composed herself for prayer. She
clapped her hands twice, and bowed. “Gracious Fukurokujin, wisest of Fortunes, hear me. Guide
my thoughts, so that I may bring honor to my clan and my ancestors. Aid me in being a true daughter

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of Lady Doji.” Shizue paused. Did she dare speak the words aloud? But how else would the Fortune
hear? “Grant me your wisdom to discern the truth in the matter of Lord Satsume’s death.”
The candlelight wavered as if in a breeze. Her sister’s words echoed in the silence.
We cannot afford to act rashly in this matter. And to jump to the implication of murder is
truly rash! We must allow the Emerald Magistrates to conduct their own investigation, and then the
Crane shall stand by their verdict. They are the agents of the Emperor, and the arbiters of his laws.
Let them do their duty, and we shall see to ours.
So it seemed that Hotaru was content to stay her hand—for now. But what had she and
Bayushi Kachiko, the Imperial Advisor, spoken about that time? Could Hotaru be acting upon some
newfound clue she had withheld from the rest of the clan?
Or was she pursuing a subtle form of revenge?
To Hotaru, Doji Satsume was a tyrant and a terrible father. Hotaru had never forgiven him
for his part in his wife’s suicide. Now, she seemed ready to let his own death stand unchallenged. It
was a child’s duty to avenge a parent’s murder, and Duty was one of the seven pillars of Bushidō.
Hotaru would never directly violate the dictates of Bushidō, but she seemed certain there was
nothing to avenge. She had looked appropriately somber at Satsume’s funeral, but the next day she
had delegated to Shizue the task of going to the various temples in the capital city and arranging for
prayers and incense in their father’s memory.
And yet, Hotaru truly had other concerns to deal with. The death of Akodo Arasou at her
hands, and the ascension of her longtime friend Akodo Toturi to the position of Lion Clan Champion
as a direct result. The continued siege of Toshi Ranbo. The broken engagement between the Lion
and the Unicorn. The newly anointed Phoenix Clan Champion.
It was possible that Satsume’s death was simply an unfortunate tragedy—natural but
unexpected. But rumors swirled in the Imperial Palace, and Shizue could not be certain.
Her brother’s words told a different tale.
Satsume’s death was far too sudden, and his loss has only served to cement the Scorpion
Clan’s position over ours in court! While we protect our holdings on the Osari Plains from the Lion,
those in the capital must get to the bottom of this, and take action.
Weeks had passed since Kuwanan had written the letter, which was uncharacteristically
stained with mud. He must have been on the front lines, writing from some nowhere village where
he’d been stationed—and felt powerless to act beyond writing the letter.

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 At least he’d known better than to directly blame the Scorpion in the letter, or to call out
Hotaru by name, for it was all too easy for the Clan of Secrets to intercept his correspondence.
To hear Kuwanan’s side of the story, Doji Satsume was an exacting but just father. Kuwanan
loved Teinko just as much as Hotaru did, and had mourned her just as deeply, but he was the son
Satsume had always wanted. His father had lavished all of his love on Kuwanan, and he was
incapable of seeing Satsume as the cold taskmaster that Hotaru saw. For him, his parents’ deaths
were separate issues. No vengeance could be taken for Teinko’s suicide, so nothing could be done
about his mother. He believed his father had been murdered, and so the murderer had to be found
and made to pay—it was his duty, a duty he proudly embraced.
Which story should she believe? Teinko had taken Shizue in and lavished the same love and
care on her as she had on Hotaru and Kuwanan. Satsume had formally adopted her, not just giving
her a family but making her one of Doji-no-Kami’s own line. He had been a gruff and distant father
figure, as so many parents were, but he had never been unkind to her. Others in the Doji family had
whispered disapprovingly of her twisted leg, but he had only mentioned it once to her. “Your
lameness will make people underestimate you,” he had said. “Make sure they are wrong.”
The opposing stories waged war within her heart. Shizue owed her champion her obedience,
which meant accepting Satsume’s death. Kuwanan and Bushidō demanded vengeance, which
required action.
Both stories could not be true.
She stared at the statue of Fukurokujin for a long time.

The guard opened the door and Shizue slowly entered the prince’s sitting room. As protocol
demanded, she immediately knelt down and pressed her head to the floor in respect.
“Shizue-san, it is a pleasure to see you,” came the prince’s gentle voice. “Please come and
sit before me.”
Long practice had given Shizue the ability to look graceful while picking up her cane and
climbing to her feet. She moved forward at a decorous pace, using the time to catch a glimpse of the
prince to gauge his mood. Hantei Daisetsu always looked thoughtful, but today he seemed even
more pensive than usual. He was dressed somewhat casually, and his unbound hair cascaded around
his shoulders and down his back in a lavish display. Soon he would have his gempuku and it would

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all be cut off. Shizue mourned the loss of such beauty, but it could not be helped: the Imperials were
very traditional regarding the length and style of men’s hair.
Shizue knelt on a cushion placed before the low dais the prince was seated on. “Thank you
for summoning me, Your Highness,” she said humbly. “It is a delight to serve a member of the
Imperial Family.”
“It is a delight to hear your stories, so we are both favored this afternoon.” He made a small
signal and a servant came forward to pour him a cup of tea. A different servant placed a cup before
Shizue. “It will be a moment of calm amidst the troubles that surround us.”
It was an unusually philosophical thought for one so young. “It is one of the many gifts a
story can provide,” she said.
“And the Crane are experts at gift-giving,” Daisetsu said. His smile made it a jest and not a
taunt. “And since you are a Crane, I suppose you have already heard about the new Phoenix
Champion.”
“Shiba Tsukune,” Shizue said. “I know little about her except that she is somewhat young.”
“Very young, which makes her an odd choice to replace Shiba Ujimitsu’s experience,” the
prince remarked. “She apparently trained as a bushi with the Lion Clan for some time. Perhaps that
influenced the choice: there are signs of trouble between the Phoenix and the Lion.”
“She would surely have greater insight into Lion motives than most Phoenix samurai,”
Shizue agreed.
“On the other hand, your brother Kuwanan has trained with the Lion, and it does not seem
to have helped matters any.”
Tension arced through Shizue as the conversation shifted to dangerous ground. She steadied
herself and smiled sadly at the prince. “I am afraid one needs no special insight into our conflict
with the Lion. Our possession of the Osari Plains is perfectly legal, and the Lion are resorting to
violence because that is what they know. We merely strive to safeguard the lands the Emperor has
granted us, and to use the bounty they provide to further our duties to the Empire.”
“The Crown Prince is in favor of officially ignoring the issue altogether, and allowing your
two clans to settle it on the battlefield.”
Daisetsu’s tone implied that he was not entirely in favor of the idea. That the Imperial princes
were divided in their opinions of the conflict was crucial information. She would have to inform
Kakita Yoshi soon.

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 And yet, to hear that Daisetsu and Sotorii’s relationship was not unlike Hotaru and
Kuwanan’s... She wished she could say she understood, but she would never speak of her family’s
internal struggles with an outsider, especially one so prominently placed.
With fresh determination, she returned to the point that Hotaru would be most interested in.
“And what does His Majesty think?”
His answer was a smirk and a short laugh. “I am surprised you didn’t ask what my mother
thinks! Or do you simply assume that she favors her former clan?”
“Empress Hochiahime is a wise and gracious woman,” Shizue said primly. And yet, her
failing health was no secret, and it was rumored that she would be absent from the ceremonies and
festivities of the Kiku Matsuri in order to convalesce. “She would never discuss Imperial policy in
front of the Emperor’s children.”
This drew a real laugh from the prince, and he gestured for the servants to clear away the
teacups. “You haven’t even started your story and already I am entertained,” he said. “What have
you brought me today?”
“Your Highness, I have brought the story of Kakita’s courtship of Lady Doji.” Shizue slipped
the fan from her obi and opened it with a snap. “After the first Emerald Tournament, the Emperor
Hantei and Kakita had become fast friends,” she began.
The story flowed through Shizue, told with words and quick gestures of her fan: Lady Doji’s
three impossible requests, Kakita’s long search, and the wise old fisherwoman who had helped him.
“‘For my bride,’ Kakita began, ‘you asked me to bring the dead to life for our wedding day.’
From a small bag, Kakita pulled a piece of seasoned driftwood. ‘I found this on the shore of a small
fishing village, miles from the forests. Its death was long ago, in a winter that tore it from its mother
tree and cast it to the ocean. It drifted for seasons since, withered and lifeless on the summer rains.
Certainly, this qualifies.’ An amused Hantei raised an eyebrow in curiosity as Kakita drew a strange
stringed instrument from his bag.”
Shizue mimicked the movement, gently proffering a phantom instrument in her hands.
“‘From a piece of the wood I have shown you, I have carved this gift.’ With gentle fingers,
Kakita evoked a love melody from the biwa, the first such instrument ever created in Rokugan. The
biwa sang pure and echoing notes throughout the palace. Everywhere that the music could be heard,
the populace stopped to listen in wonder at the beauty of the piece. When he was done, none could
argue that the biwa had indeed come to life. Lady Doji could only nod.”

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 Shizue’s body grew rigid as she donned Lady Doji’s persona, nodding at her audience with
only the slightest hints of fear and hope escaping her tranquil façade. With another shift in posture,
she re-assumed the genial character of Kakita.
“‘Secondly, gentle daughter of Amaterasu, you asked that I tell you how wide the world is,
and how long it would take to walk from one side to the other. The answer to your question is not
in the journey, but in one’s companion. If a man were to awaken when the sun rises from the sea,
and travel the land by your mother’s side, surely he would find himself at the other side of the world
when she sought her rest in the western lands.’ Kakita’s smile was pleasant and broad. ‘Thus, as
Amaterasu herself is my guide, it takes but one day to travel the world.’ The court smiled, and Hantei
had to struggle to contain his laughter at this eloquent answer. Lady Doji blushed slightly in response
and hid her smile beneath a swiftly upraised fan.”
Shizue opened her fan and drew it to conceal her face, smiling instead with her brows.
“Kakita smiled at Doji and continued, ‘Lastly, my lady, you asked me to bring you an
example of perfect beauty—a beauty which could not be contested, even by you.’ Kakita reached
into his bag again, and there was subtle whispering in the court. ‘It was difficult, my lady, to find
the most beautiful thing in Rokugan, but I believe I can show it to you.’ With closed hands, he drew
the final object from the bag and held it before her. Lady Doji leaned toward it inquisitively, and
Kakita opened his hands.”
Daisetsu, too, was leaning in, and Shizue paused dramatically.
“Held carefully between Kakita’s fingers was a small golden mirror, poised so that Lady
Doji could see her own reflection. Lady Doji’s heart was fully won. The wedding of Kakita and Doji
was held immediately, and the festivities lasted for seven days.”
When she finished, Shizue was exhausted but pleased: her performance had been flawless.
She bowed once more, and resumed her place on the cushion. Nevertheless, as she looked up at him
through the corner of her eye, Daisetsu had a slight frown on his face, and her heart skipped a beat.
“You are as skilled as your reputation claims, Shizue-san,” he said. “I could see the events
as if they took place before me, but that made me notice something I hadn’t before.” He paused in
contemplation of his next words. “Kakita cheated—the driftwood really hadn’t come back to life. It
was only part of a biwa, not a living tree.”
No one had ever questioned one of her stories before. Nor had she ever needed to defend
one of the founders of her clan without insulting an Imperial prince. “That is right, Your Highness,”

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Shizue smiled as she quickly sorted through possible responses. “It is true that the piece of wood
was no longer a living tree. But the story Kakita told about it, with his words and music, made it
truly live again in Lady Doji’s mind.”
The prince seemed to be turning something over in his mind. “So the truth is merely what
one believes it to be.”
She could not contest him, for appearances were reality in Rokugan. A rakish courtier was
a perfect husband so long as his wife was never confronted with his infidelity. A sake-loving samurai
was not a drunkard so long as she performed her duties to her lord.
In the end, it did not matter whether Satsume had been killed or simply died.
All that mattered was what Hotaru and Kuwanan believed. And they each believed
differently.
Shizue kept her face completely still, and bowed deeply. “His Highness is wise indeed.”

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Otomo Sorai's hand trembled, and the sake he was pouring nearly splashed out of the delicate
porcelain cup. Bayushi Kachiko politely ignored the near breach of decorum.
“My most profuse apologies, Bayushi dono," he said, offering the decanter so she could pour
for him. “I fear age is rendering me less steady than I was in my youth.”
“But my lord, you have learned so much in your years. I should be so lucky as to glean
merely a fraction of your wisdom.” She finished pouring for them both, but as she reached for his
cup her kimono slipped slightly, exposing just a hint of her throat and shoulder. Sorai tensed across
the table, and they both picked up their cups.
As they sipped in silence, Sorai, the Otomo family daimyō, glanced around Kachiko's
audience chamber, taking in the stark decor: a shōji screen depicting sparse cherry blossoms, a wall
hanging adorned with a quote from Bayushi’s Lies—“The best mask is no mask at all”—in scarlet
ink under the Scorpion mon, and a red vase on a mahogany side table holding a single white
carnation. Even the lanterns cast a ruddy light through the room.
“Now, Otomo-dono, you wished to discuss something.”
“Yes. I have... some concerns... regarding relations among the Great Clans”
Kachiko nodded. The Otomo, one of the Imperial families of Rokugan, existed to sow dissent
among the clans, preventing them from ever uniting against the Emperor. Her next words were,
therefore, exactly what Sorai was not expecting to hear: “Ah, so you are concerned they have been
overly strained?”
Sorai blinked. “In truth... no. Relations among the Crane, the Dragon, the Phoenix, and the
Unicorn seem to be growing ever more amicable. A coalition may be forming.”

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 “Oh, my. That is a concern. Yet, I am certain you have already devised a way of ensuring
such a thing does not come to pass.”
Sorai leaned forward. “Indeed. Otomo spouses are married into each of these clans, in
relatively senior positions. Their influence shall... lessen the likelihood of such a coalition."
“The Emperor is lucky that you have such assets at your command, Sorai-dono,” she said
softly, using his first name to underscore her trust in—and desired familiarity with—the Otomo lord.
“I know, now, to have the Scorpion come to you, should we ever need your help.” Kachiko reached
out and fractionally adjusted the vase holding the carnation. “Our time together means so much to
me, Sorai-dono—”
A soft scratching at the door interrupted her. “This must be urgent,” she said, looking
disappointed. “When it comes to certain guests, I am to be disturbed only if it is absolutely essential.”
Frustration tightened Sorai's face, but he simply nodded. “Of course. A matter urgent to the
Imperial Advisor must be addressed without delay.” Rising from the cushion, he bowed to Kachiko.
“Until our next meeting, Bayushi-dono.”
Kachiko stood and returned the bow with a smile. “I look forward to it, Otomo-dono.”
Sorai gave a lingering look, then moved to the door and opened it. A man whose dark kimono
bore the mon of the Shosuro family moved aside. He bowed deeply as Sorai departed, then entered
and slid the door closed. “Lady Bayushi, l come bearing important news,” he said, loud enough for
the Otomo to overhear, and bowed again.
Kachiko corrected her kimono and glanced at the carnation. Takeru had been watching the
flower surreptitiously, waiting for her to give the signal. She waited a few more moments to ensure
that they were truly alone. “I would hear your thoughts regarding Sorai, but I must prepare to meet
with the Emperor this afternoon.”
“Of course, my lady. However, there is one matter I believe I should bring to your attention
now.”
“You are my most trusted retainer, Takeru-san. Go on.”
“Your confidence honors me, Bayushi-dono. Earlier today, I had occasion to play Go with
my friend the esteemed Unicorn ambassador lde Tadaji. His clan intends to petition the throne,
proposing a new law declaring Toshi Ranbo an Imperial city. This would prevent further attacks on
it by any clan lacking official Imperial sanction.”
“Interesting. And under what pretext?"

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 “Concern for the common people of Toshi Ranbo, who have been subjected to many years
of conflict. The Unicorn wish that suffering alleviated.”
“How very compassionate of them. I assume the Unicorn seek support from our clan.”
“Indeed, Lady Bayushi. The Unicorn ambassador claims significant support for this petition
already, but the backing of the Scorpion Clan would be... most beneficial. I bade him approach the
Scorpion Clan Champion regarding this matter.”
Kachiko nodded. “Very well. Now, if that is all! I must prepare to meet our glorious
Emperor.”
“Of course, my lady,” Takeru said, bowing deeply.
After he left, Kachiko lingered. She did have a great deal to do before meeting the Emperor,
but Takeru's report could change things. The Unicorn concern for the welfare of heimin farmers was
charming, but predictable. There undoubtedly was, however, more to it.
She looked at the sake she had shared with Sorai.
Relations among the Crane, the Dragon, the Phoenix, and the Unicorn seem to be growing
ever more amicable.
The old man had been right in his assessment. Self-importantly irrelevant, but right
nonetheless.
...there will be no alliance of consequence permitted between the Crane and the Unicorn,
she’d told her husband when last they'd met in the Imperial Gardens.
And yet, the Unicorn were obviously trying to do something to benefit the Crane, who
currently held Toshi Ranbo despite the best efforts of the Lion to dislodge them. Under the Unicorn’s
proposed law, Crane control over the city, and their lasting claim to it, would be dramatically
strengthened.
What did the Unicorn stand to gain from this? If Toshi Ranbo was denied to them, the Lion
would likely deploy their full might against the Unicorn out of sheer, frustrated spite...
“Ah...of course.”
Shinjo Altansarnai’s failed marriage with the Lion would likely lead to war anyway. And
while Crane military support would be useful to the Unicorn, their support in the Imperial Court,
mitigating the political scandal of the Unicorn Champion’s broken betrothal, could be more potent
than a whole legion of bushi. It would cost the Crane some of their diminishing stock of political
capital, but if it solidified their grip on Toshi Ranbo, it would be worth it.

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 Kachiko followed the strands of threat and opportunity, a spider’s web of possibilities
spinning outward from the Unicorn petition...
...the Unicorn at war with the Lion, diverting their attention from the opium trade in Ryoko
Owari Toshi...
...the Phoenix-infuriated by the Unicorn’s use of gaijin magic and bolstered by lsawa
Kaede’s marriage to their new champion—allying with the Lion, weakening their current alliance
with the Crane...
...the Crane, emboldened in the courts, growing their political influence—
Doji Hotaru, her perfect face framed by delicate strands of white hair and lit by a bright
smile... her hands in Kachiko’s, strong, but still warm and soft...
Kachiko's eyes narrowed on the carnation.
...there will be no alliance of consequence permitted between the Crane and the Unicorn.
Kachiko abruptly strode out of her audience chamber. A servant hovered near the entrance,
waiting to clean the room. She stopped and glared at the man, who knelt with his forehead pressed
to the floor.
“The welfare of peasants,” she snapped. “Why do the Unicorn even care?”
The servant said nothing, of course, and Kachiko continued on her way.

Bayushi Kachiko paused outside the Temple of Hantei-no-Kami. She stood on a long bridge that
rested on the shoulders of paired statues, each the likeness of a past Emperor. Water lilies and lotus
blossoms dotted the placid water below. Here in the Forbidden City, the Imperial heart of Otosan
Uchi, there was none of the noise and bustle of the surrounding streets. Serenity enveloped the
temple like a silken shroud, which was why the Emperor used it to escape the simmering tension of
the Imperial Court.
Instead, it was her duty to bring the matters of the court to him. And pressing matters there
were.
Kachiko carried on, acknowledging the bows offered by the Seppun Honor Guard, the
Miharu, flanking the temple’s entrance. A young Miya attendant led her through the interior of the
temple, which was a surprisingly small and sparse structure considering its revered purpose. They
stopped at a plain door flanked by two more of the vigilant Miharu. The Miya slid the door open
and stepped back.

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 Kachiko entered and, in one smooth movement, dropped and touched her forehead to the
polished floor.
“Rise, Bayushi Kachiko san," a soft voice said, "and join me for tea.”
Kachiko returned to her feet and faced the speaker, His August Imperial Majesty Hantei the
Thirty-Eighth, Emperor of Rokugan.
“I am honored to do so, Your Majesty.” she said, taking her place opposite the Emperor at a
small table set with a tea service and a game of Go. As always, she was struck by the bare simplicity
of the room—the table, a pair of comfortable cushions, and a trio of unadorned shoji screens. She
understood the Emperor was glad to escape the pomp and ceremony that surrounded his every
movement, but this was barren even to her reserved tastes. Even the Hantei’s wardrobe was plain, a
green kimono embroidered with the Imperial Chrysanthemum mon in gold.
While a servant poured tea, she examined the Go board, upon which a game was underway.
“Tell me, Bayushi-san,” the Emperor said, noting her interest, “how do you believe this game
will progress?”
Kachiko considered the arrangement of the stones. “Assuming neither player makes an error,
and the optimum placement of his stones... then, after he places his sixth stone, white will have an
insurmountable lead.”
The Emperor nodded. “I quite agree. What do you have to tell me today, Bayushi-san?”
Kachiko began addressing various matters of court with the Emperor—all of them important,
none of them vital. The Emperor listened, occasionally commenting or asking questions and then,
if appropriate, rendering a decision. When she brought up the matter of Lion and Crane tensions
around Toshi Ranbo-and the death of the Lion Clan Champion, Akodo Arasou—the Emperor
frowned.
“An unfortunate situation. It has already cost the lives of many loyal samurai.”
Kachiko waited for the Emperor to go on, and he did, but to other matters. The Unicorn
petition could be pressing, but she wasn’t prepared to bring it to the Emperor’s attention-not until
she had discussed it with Shoju.
They continued their discussion, and Kachiko studied the Emperor as though she were
looking at him for the first time. The man had occupied the Chrysanthemum Throne for almost as
long as she’d been alive. He was, by definition, divine—a scion of Tengoku, the Celestial Heavens.
He could trace his lineage to Lady Sun herself. For all her pragmatism, Kachiko had never doubted

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this. But for the second time today, her thoughts returned to her conversation with Shoju in the
gardens, after he had mentioned the Kami Hantei, the first Emperor.
Many Hantei emperors have come and gone in the meantime. Kachiko had said. None have
enjoyed the favor of Heaven as clearly as the first. And this one, the thirty-eighth-
Shoju had stopped her, preventing her from saying what she had been meaning to-this one,
the thirty-eighth, might have lost the favor of Heaven entirely.
Blasphemy. Treason. And yet, if this Emperor was infused with the righteous power of
Tengoku, why was he drawn and tired, his hair fading to grey, his eyesight failing such that
documents had to be written in ever-larger script?
“Is there more, Bayushi-san?” the Emperor asked.
Kachiko realized silence had fallen and looked thoughtful. "Yes, Your Majesty. Yasuki
Taka-dono has requested a private audience with you. He advocates for more Imperial support for
the Crab Clan, to bolster their defense of the Carpenter Wall.”
The Emperor sighed. “He will prattle on about jade, and rice, and sending imperial Legions.
Can we not simply accede to his request?”
“We could, Your Majesty, if not for shortages throughout the Empire. the Crane, who
normally have ample surpluses of rice, continue to struggle with the damage done by the tsunami to
their fields. Their lack leaves no buffer against more far-reaching scarcity. And as for jade, existing
mines near exhaustion, while no new ones have been found to replace them.”
The Emperor’s frown hardened.
...this one, the thirty-eighth, might have lost the favor of Heaven entirely.
“What do you suggest I tell him, then?” the Emperor asked at last.
Kachiko considered the question, but the politician in her saw an opportunity. “If I may
suggest, Your Majesty, the Yasuki lord could meet with your surrogate regarding this, sparing your
having to deal with such...specific matters. I would suggest Kakita Yoshi-dono. Meeting with the
Imperial Chancellor attaches the weight of the Imperial Court to the issue.”
Kachiko waited. The weight of the Imperial Court would mean nothing to Taka, who would
just be angry that he wasn’t meeting with the Emperor himself. But if there was no good news to
offer, it might as well be Yoshi who said so. And anything that kept the chancellor busy left him
less likely to interfere in other matters...

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 “Very well,” the Emperor said. “The chancellor shall meet with Taka. Is there anything
else?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said. “The final matter is that of the Emerald Champion.”
“Yes, Bayushi Shoju touched on the matter as we dined last evening. This was our game of
Go.” The Emperor gave Kachiko a keen look. “He was playing white.”
Was the Emperor annoyed by the game? She would need to shape her next words
accordingly. Before she could respond, he waved a dismissive hand.
“I have become quite used to Shoju defeating me, my lady. As for the Emerald Champion,
that is a grave affair. His funeral procession will not be forgotten anytime soon.”
“Indeed, the whole of the Empire still mourns his loss. But I am referring to the Emerald
Championship itself. The office must be filled as soon as possible. There are too many contentious
issues affecting the Empire to leave it empty.”
“This is much what Shoju said.”
“He and I are of a similar mind. Accordingly, I recommend that you appoint a new Emerald
Champion immediately, filling the office in an acting capacity, until the customary tournament can
be held to determine the permanent incumbent. I further recommend that Bayushi Aramoro, the
esteemed brother of Bayushi Shoju, be appointed to the role.”
“You recommend a Scorpion. How surprising.”
Kachiko offered a self-deprecating smile. “I realize it hardly seems an unbiased choice.
However, the Scorpion are—thank the Fortunes—not currently embroiled in the complex and
demanding issues distracting the other clans. The Crab need every soldier on the Wall. The Lion
and the Crane are consumed by their disagreement over Toshi Ranbo, and they should resolve that
before even attempting to adopt an Empire-wide outlook. Aramoro, on the other hand, would bring
the broad perspective and objectivity the position demands.”
“It is unusual to appoint a new Emerald Champion. The custom is to fill the role through the
tournament.”
“Unusual... but not unprecedented. Hantei the Third, may he bask in the glory of Heaven
forever, did so. Admittedly, the circumstances were different-the incumbent committed seppuku in
protest, dying by his own hand rather than carrying out an execution—but the need of the Empire
was no greater than it is now, and perhaps even less.”

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 The Emperor stared at the Go board. Kachiko waited, her gaze also on the game. Many
considered Go an exercise in martial thinking, but to Kachiko, the game more closely described the
behavior of people. Knowing the two players of this one as well as she did, she could readily predict
the game’s likely outcome. Just as Shoju was six stones from victory, her own experience with the
Hantei told her that her succession of courtly moves should lead to Aramoro being named Emerald
Champion. And once he held that position in an acting capacity, it shouldn’t be difficult to have it
become permanent-
“No”
Kachiko looked up from the game.
“No,” the Emperor repeated, “the new Emerald Champion will be selected by the customary
tournament, not by appointment; You may inform the esteemed Imperial Herald to undertake the
necessary preparations.”
Kachiko stared. Almost shook her head.
Assuming neither player makes an error, and the optimum placement of his stones...
This was not.
“Do you have any questions, Bayushi-san?"
Kachiko’s mind raced through a dozen scenarios. At last, she said, “I do not, Your Majesty.
Your wisdom, your will.”
As she departed the Temple of Hantei-no-Kami, Kachiko paused again on the bridge. She
didn’t look at the flowering plants or the placid water this time. Instead, she looked at the statues
supporting the sweeping arc of the bridge. Eighteen pairs of them-the first thirty-six Hantei
Emperors of Rokugan. When the current Emperor died, the bridge would be redesigned to
accommodate his likeness, and that of his father and predecessor.
I am referring to the Emerald Championship itself. The office must be filled as soon as
possible. There are too many contentious issues affecting the Empire to leave it empty.
But that was exactly what the Emperor had chosen to do. He'd made an entirely unexpected
move. An uncharacteristic one. An error, even, throwing the game into chaos. She needed to
consider her own move in response.
For a moment, Kachiko looked at the place where the statue of Hantei XXXVIII would
stand, once he was dead. Then she turned and started back to the imperial Palace, her pace measured,
but determined.

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Ikoma Ujiaki waded through a boisterous river of Lion bushi, courtiers, and shugenja thronging the
sake house. The scents of wine and perfume choked the air as the serving girls floated between
tables, bowing between passes of porcelain carafes. Ujiaki spied a lone samurai tucked into a corner,
her blank face undoubtedly a mask. He knelt on the cushion beside the low table, arraying himself
opposite her, and gave a polite nod as an apology for his intrusion.
“Akodo Matoko-san,” he cleared his throat, surveying the battlefield of empty sake bottles
crowding the table. “You seem...distracted from the festivities. Are you fretting for Akodo-ue’s
nuptials tomorrow?” Or dreading, perhaps?
The retired sensei did not reply, but merely gritted her teeth. Ujiaki followed her gaze to the
sake bottle between them, which was painted with small cranes circling the kanji for “grace.” He
called a servant to their table.
“Hatsuko,” he growled, but avoided the rudeness of actually pointing at the bottle. “A
different bottle. Now.”
He thought he saw a flash of a knowing smile on the serving girl’s lips, but the immediate
innocence of her apology smothered it. “My deepest apologies, Ujiaki-sama. I beg forgiveness from
our most esteemed Lion Clan patron. I shall bring one worthy of you and your guest.”
“Most esteemed?” Matoko snickered, her voice deep with reluctant amusement, as Hatsuko
whisked away the bottle and brought a new, undecorated one.
Ujiaki bristled but kept his emotions on a tight leash. “Diplomats frequent these
establishments to discuss strategy. Fine sake is a potent lubricant for negotiation.”

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 “Ah, of course,” Matoko responded, drumming her strong fingers on the table. “I have my
battlefield, you have yours.”
“Indeed.” Ujiaki stroked his wild beard smooth. He had not expected such condescension
from her, but he found the words for the proper counter. “And how goes your personal battle,
Matoko-san? They speak of nothing else these days at the Lion embassy. I hear your husband
Daidoji Utsugiri has abandoned you to join the Crane army. I hope his actions have not rallied your
sympathies against us in our dispute with the Crane.”
Matoko’s face stiffened at his assault. The lantern light cast shadows in the lines of remorse
around her mouth, although it was promptly swallowed up by her anger. She’s had too much sake
to keep control over her emotions.
“I am sworn to the Lion—to Akodo Toturi-ue, Ujiaki-sama. And my former husband’s acts
are none of your concern.”
“On the contrary,” Ujiaki pressed, maintaining his momentum. “Military conflicts define my
relationships at court. War makes enemies of friends and family for us all. I suppose it is only natural
for you to want the Lion to hesitate instead of crushing those who would insult our clan with
impunity.”
Matoko leaped to her feet, ready to draw her weapon, but she steadied herself as the patrons
nearby eyed her outburst. She reseated herself, her eyes watering from the sting of shame. “That
was a coward’s blow, Ujiaki,” she hissed before downing another cup of sake with a grip near strong
enough to shatter the tiny porcelain vessel.
Ujiaki smiled at the victory. “Yes, forgive me, Matoko-san.” He poured her another round.
“We all live and die for the Lion in our own way,” she mumbled, as though she were
attempting to convince herself. “We will sacrifice whatever it takes in the service of honor.”
“Yes. You have. Your break from your husband offers proof enough of your loyal sacrifices
for our clan.” Ujiaki scanned the room one more time, ensuring they would not be overheard before
continuing. “If only others were so eager to declare their loyalty as swiftly as you. There are those
among us who still... treasure their connections with the Crane, even in the face of ultimate betrayal.”
Matoko frowned. “Are you talking about Lord Toturi?”
As she followed the path he’d left for her, Ujiaki stroked his beard once more. “But then
again, it can be hard for childhood friends to grow up and let go for the sake of the clan.” Still
avoiding Toturi’s name directly, he continued, “Perhaps he belongs in an Asako monastery. He’s

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more Phoenix than Lion anyway—a hesitating philosopher would be perfect for a pacifist clan of
librarians.”
“Toturi-sama is our leader,” Matoko insisted, too tipsy to keep up the subtleties of Ujiaki’s
feint. “These internal disputes only make our clan weak. We must move past them. He should have
our support in his new role as champion. Let him grow into the leader he is to become.”
“I wish there were more time for patience,” Ujiaki lamented. “But a looming war requires
immediate action. Loyalty. Service. Sacrifice. From all of us. Like yours.”
Matoko looked beyond him, to young Mikiu who sat several tables away. Matoko’s daughter
laughed with a crowd of young bushi. The young warrior had just passed her gempuku, and the
cloud of her current familial troubles had vanished in the camaraderie of her new companions. After
studying the happiness on her child’s face, the retired sensei shook her head and let out a labored
breath.
“I believe in Toturi-sama, Ujiaki-san. Our honor comes from obedience, to our Emperor and
to our champion. We would all do well to remember it.”
Ujiaki hid a grimace beneath a friendly smile and bowed to her, the stalemate in their
discussion itching like a bead of sweat. Silence hung around their table until Hatsuko suddenly
dispelled the tenseness with a tray of fresh bottles.
“I am sorry that the sake is not agreeing with you. Our illustrious owner has requested I bring
you some of our house koshu. We were saving it for the celebrations of the Emerald Championship
tournament, but perhaps it will be more pleasing to our loyal Lion Clan guests.” She set several
bottles down before leaving to serve other tables.
Of course. “The Emerald Championship,” he chuckled to himself. How could he have not
seen it before?
Matoko took the cup, suspicion crimping her eyebrows. “Hm?”
The Office of the Emerald Champion was the greatest honor the Emperor can bestow on a
clan—and with it came the Hantei’s favor.
Ujiaki grinned. Of course we shall compete in the tournament, and our clan boasts many of
the strongest and most experienced warriors and magistrates. But there stands one who needs a
chance to prove himself useful. Someone who would not be missed during his constant journeys
throughout the Empire...

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Akodo Toturi’s face rippled on the surface of the ablution fountain. Arasou. Hotaru. Tsuko. And
now the Emerald Championship tournament.
He dashed his reflection away by dipping the copper ladle into the font, drawing the cold
water over his hands to purify them.
And Kaede, my bride.
Each of them was a wave spreading across the Empire, and before long they would return,
like the ripples bouncing off the stone walls of the fountain.
“Ah, Akodo-ue. You are quite early.” Akodo Kage’s long white hair spilled down his
shoulders over a spotless, black dress kimono tied with a brown and gold hakama. The sun winked
his wrinkled yet sharp eyes, and he smiled warmly as he approached. “Nervous on your wedding
day?”
Toturi nodded. His aged teacher would no doubt have the wisdom he needed. “It does not
feel like a wedding day. I have too much on my mind.”
“What troubles you?”
Toturi took a deep breath before looking up into the branches of a red plum tree, the leaves
waving in the breeze like bloody hands. “Arasou.”
Kage did not seem surprised.
Toturi continued. “He should be here, accepting Kaede into our family beside me. He always
teased me about Kaede, and now the day is here where that actually means something.
“Hotaru, she—”
Toturi didn’t have words, and Kage seemed content to let silence fill their place. The warm
wind rustled the leaves gently, like the whispering of spirits.
What will you do?
He had yet to speak to Hotaru—or even see her—since that day. He could not know whether
she was still in Toshi Ranbo, or if she had already returned to the Imperial Capital.
“I wonder, will I face her in the Tournament of the Emerald Champion? Or her uncle, Kakita
Toshimoko, perhaps the most famous duelist in all of Rokugan?”
How could he possibly defeat the Grey Crane, if that was who Hotaru tapped to compete?
And if by some miracle he should win, Toturi would face even larger questions.
The shrine darkened as a rain cloud passed in front of the sun, and the skies churned, as if
they were as tumultuous as his thoughts.

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 “I thought it was just Tsuko, but now... It seems they are trying to banish me to the court.
“Every day that I do not declare open war against the Crane, the deeper the chasm grows
within the rising factions in the Lion.
“The worst part of this is that the paths are all clear. There are simply...too many.”
Kage gave a polite laugh and tapped Toturi’s forehead with his fan. “Toturi-kun, your mind
has always been a labyrinth.”
“It’s my curse.”
“Never,” Kage chuckled. “Arasou would always tell you that you thought too much, but that
is exactly why he is where he is and you are where you are.”
Toturi frowned, his shoulders growing rigid at the comment, but Kage’s shrewd smile hinted
at a lesson in the words.
“Toturi-kun,” Kage continued. “Do you remember when you first met Isawa Kaede? Her
father brought her with him to Castle Akodo to negotiate the final details of the betrothal. You were
about eight, possibly nine.”
“I was eight. I remember because Arasou had just had his sixth birthday.”
“Ha, your memory is the keenest of blades. You and Arasou were spear fishing in the garden
pond—much to the servants’ consternation—and having a small, strange Phoenix girl join your
party was just the oddest sight. Poor Lady Kaede knew nothing about catching fish, and Arasou
laughed right in her face. He told her he could catch ten before she would even catch one.”
“He was just showing his Lion pride. Father taught him to be stronger, faster, and more
fearsome than those of any other clan.”
“Perhaps, but for some reason you did not learn those lessons. You did not see a rival in
Kaede. You saw a young bird who would learn to soar among the Heavens, not a lion cub who could
hunt and wrestle. You also saw a sad little girl who perhaps could not catch a single fish before
Arasou caught his ten. Do you remember what you did?”
“I helped her catch one.”
“You did more than that, Toturi-kun. You called out to Arasou, ‘I see a huge fish over there!’
and he crashed around the back end of the pond like a bucking horse. His splashing scared the all
fish toward Kaede, and she speared one.”
“There was a big fish. I wasn’t lying. Arasou even caught it.”

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 “He did, but you made it happen. More importantly, you helped Arasou and Kaede both get
fish.”
Toturi recalled Kaede and Arasou as children, smiling—Arasou with his toothy arrogance
over his massive trout and Kaede with her innocent delight at her delicate stickleback.
“Your brother had his place. He fulfilled his role well. He was a powerful, assertive warrior
who led the charges and spilled enough blood to be the fiercest and most formidable Lion Clan
Champion we have yet had. However, his focus was only ever on the task at hand, his eyes on a
single catch. Likewise, you have your place. You see not just one fish at a time, but the pond, the
shore and the fisherman in it. For you, the situation branches far past the single path, beyond the
current battle into the dozens that branch after it. Your perspective transcends clan squabbles,
revenge, rage, and foolish mistakes.”
Kage folded his arms over his chest as he always did before the final words of a lesson.
“There are those who can crash after the single fish and get it, and then there are the rare few like
you, who can see where those people must go to achieve greater things. This is why you were
chosen. And this is why you would be the best Emerald Champion the Empire could hope for.”
The memory glistened for a final moment in Toturi’s mind before vanishing. The kind old
man nodded his encouragement, as he always had in times of trouble. Toturi bowed to Kage. “Thank
you, sensei. Your wisdom has again guided me to the right path.”
Kage laughed an aged yet hearty laugh. “Don’t lie, Toturi-kun. The right path has always
been before you. Sometimes, you just need a push to take the first steps. Now go and join your life
with that of the young bird who has become a brilliant phoenix. And remind Kaede that she is getting
the kind brother.”
Toturi bowed a last time before making his way under the sakaki trees where the wedding
procession would start. A nervous tremor had entered his hands, seeming to fill his stomach with
stones.
This wedding is so inopportune. Too soon after Arasou’s funeral, during my power struggle
with Tsuko and the others, while on the brink of war... Perhaps it should have been postponed... But
it is too late.
Ikoma Ujiaki, Akodo Matoko, and the rest of the Imperial Lion Clan contingent joined him.
The temple bells rang out, as if to herald this moment and all the change it would bring.

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 Isawa Kaede entered the temple courtyard wearing a flowing white kimono with red rimming
the flowers, leaves, and birds with crimson streaks. A wedding headdress crowned with a golden
phoenix hooded her dark hair, from which strings of pearls hung on either side of her face.
Beside her walked her father and lord, Isawa Ujina, the Elemental Master of Void. A young
bushi trailed behind them, as if she were horribly lost, until he recognized her from the dōjō of the
Akodo Commander School—and the tell-tale hilt of Ofushikai.
Kaede bowed to Toturi, offering a graceful, nervous smile before turning to face the
approaching shrine maidens.
Toturi’s sight lingered a final moment on his bride. He watched the ease with which she
glided through the temple etiquette, the social obligations, the nobility of the occasion. She could
easily make friends of ten guests before he could gain the good opinion of one.
I am lucky it’s her. I don’t deserve a bride such as she.
He took his place at Kaede’s side, and the procession marched through the gates to the outer
shrine.
Halting at a flaming brazier, they all bowed as a vermillion-clad shugenja approached with
a long, flowering cherry branch in hand. He chanted to the kami, his pure voice singing the
purification prayer to earn their favor as a blessing over the union. Toturi glanced at Kaede. She was
poised, lost in the spirit of the chanting, a gentle light entering her eyes as she sensed the presence
of the kami. The warmth of the communion softened her face, and Toturi could still see the traces
of that little girl from long ago, now blossomed into the loveliness of her adulthood.
At a prompting from the shugenja, Toturi recited the ceremonial vow. “I will be your
husband. I will honor you and accept you into my home. I will protect and provide for you, my
wife.”
The shrine maidens brought forward three cups of purified sake. Toturi sipped from each
before offering it to Kaede. Then the priest threw the cherry branch before their feet, mumbling a
prayer to ignite it as a final offering to the kami. As the flames consumed the wood, Toturi reached
his hand out to Kaede, which she tenderly took in her own, their fingers clasped. Her skin was warm.
The shugenja struck up a final prayer of blessing, and a shower of cherry petals rained down from
the surrounding groves. The prayer ended, and the bride and groom were one.
The priest bowed to both of them, and Toturi and Kaede parted to reunite with their
respective clans before the reception. Toturi felt his lungs unclench, and he sighed, as if he could

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suddenly breathe again. He made his way to his clansmen to see Ikoma Ujiaki’s bushy brows barely
conceal scowling behind the rest of the Lion representatives, all gloriously adorned in their
ceremony regalia.
Our clan needs unity, even if it means taking myself out of the picture. The schism can heal
if I move on as Emerald Champion and hand some of the reins to those below me. Perhaps then we
can steer away from war together, and they will have felt they had a hand in the decision.
The Lion cannot afford the price of war. Rokugan cannot afford a war now.
He made his way through myriad congratulations from all around before turning back to see
Kaede and her family approach him. She had taken off the outer white kimono and was now
completely clothed in brown and gold, a yellow lion mon embroidered on her obi.
“My husband,” she called. Was that a hint of happiness in her voice? “Shall we continue to
the palace for the celebration feast?”
He nodded, offering his arm. She placed her hand on it, and they led the procession from the
shrine. The weight of her hand comforted him.
Our marriage is a union, a peace offering for the ties between Lion and Phoenix, he thought.
I am no longer a single man, a single soldier. I must look beyond myself to see the larger picture.
He looked up the Road of Fast Hopes to the Imperial Palace, which glistened in the morning
sun.
I must be ready to serve all of Rokugan.

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Yasuki Taka held in a frown as the servants flocked around him like sandpipers, smoothing and
tucking and tightening his outfit. One shouldn’t scowl at those simply doing their duty-just as he
was-but the heavy silk hoeki no hō was being pulled down atop other layers of formal garb that were
already more than enough.
“I thank you for your careful ministration, but this should be sufficient,” he said smoothly,
giving a polite smile and waving the servants away. “These hands of mine may not be so many as
all of yours, but they don't lack in deftness!” He pretended to busy himself with adjustments to his
garments, but took special note of the servants as they departed, noting who seemed to be in the
greatest hurry to leave and who lingered overlong. Doubtlessly they were sent by different clans to
keep an eye on him; the game was imagining who they worked for.
The first one out the door was new at espionage—foolish move, to make your exit so blatant-
and was probably the Emperor’s, chosen for convenience rather than skill. After all, who wouldn’t
expect the Imperial gaze upon them, in Otosan Uchi itself?
Those who bowed and left in a cluster were more difficult to place, wiser or more
experienced, likely fielded by clans with a middling interest in his affairs. Unicorn, perhaps—and
certainly Lion. Phoenix and Dragon would hear about it by gossip, if at all. As for Scorpion... Taka
smirked. Most likely they either did not care, or they had someone hidden under his bed.
The last servant’s allegiance was the easiest to guess: all formality, so intent on folding every
bit of discarded clothing that departure seemed almost an afterthought. Crane, of course, having
both the obsession with form and the keen desire to keep close watch on their former vassals. Even

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hundreds of years of peace could not repair the damage clone by the first true interclan war: the war
that had led the Emperor to forbid direct warfare between the Great Clans.
Never had there been poorer neighbors than the Crab and Crane—unless, of course, one
counted the Crab and the Shadowlands.
Taka frowned, showing the emotions he’d tucked away earlier, and glanced at the writing
desk set out in the corner of the room. It awaited the outcome of his meeting with the Heavenly
Sovereign, Hantei XXXVIII, and all of Taka’s hard work and persistent pleas. Too many letters of
grim apology had been written at that desk, telling his people that he had not had a chance to meet
with the Emperor yet, that they needed to hold on as best they could, that no aid was coming. His
son attempted to hide the casualties of the battles with the monsters of the Shadowlands from him,
but decades of masquerading as a simple peddler had given Yasuki Taka an enviable information
network of his own. In the dim lamplight of the room, the numbers of the dead loomed like columns
of smoke rising from pyres.
"Dim, indeed,” Taka suddenly said to himself in irritation, smoothing down his fine outer
garment and the Yasuki family mon, a golden carp surrounding a flower of deep azure, stitched
carefully across the chest. He shot a withering glance at the guttering lanterns around the room.
"You’d think it were some kind of festival in here, with all these lanterns, but not a one does more
than waver and look pretty. Why so many foolish faint gleams when one strong light is all one
requires?”
It took another few tugs on the hoeki no hō before Taka calmed himself somewhat. His last
truly happy moment had been haggling with the merchant for the silk to make that very garment.
And it was lovely, indeed-but everything about it felt stifling and irritating. "Still,” the older man
reasoned to himself, “no better candidate to appeal to the Emperor for aid than the Yasuki family
daimyō.” The mental image arose of the Crab Clan Champion’s heir, Hida Yakamo, kicking in the
door of the throne room, bedecked in war-scarred armor and bellowing for jade. Taka snickered
despite himself.
Somewhere outside, a great brass bell tolled the midday hour, and Taka sighed. "Blessed
Daikoku, hear me, and let me do my clan honor today. Let my words be heard, and my plea be
successful,” he whispered, and gave a wry smile.
“The sooner I do this, the-sooner I’m out of this gaudy-garb, away from these useless lamps,
and back on the road.”

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The courtyards of the Forbidden City seemed oddly empty as Yasuki Taka approached the palace,
figures half-discerned conversing in gardens, vaguely screened by vegetation. Weeks had passed
since the grandiose funeral memorializing the Emerald Champion, Doji Satsume, and the many
visiting dignitaries had paid their respects and returned home already. Yet, the final convening of
the Imperial Court before summer was upon them, and the grounds should have been swarming with
courtiers and their attendants.
Those few gazes surrounding him seemed to alight on him like insects in a swamp, and Taka
soothed his nerves by recalling the time he’d talked his way out of a bandit ambush, one simple
peddler against seven cutthroats. His gift had been to draw a commonality between himself as a man
just struggling to make a living and the bandits' own plight-the knaves had been so moved that not
only was he sent on his way without a scratch, but with several sales besides. Although seemingly
far removed from twisting mountain roads and the affairs of the common people, all the obfuscations
of the Imperial Capital could not change the fact that the issue in both cases had been the same:
survival. The Crab Clan fought for not only their lives, but the future of Rokugan itself. He needed
but make the Emperor realize what was truly at stake, and finally, this audience could grant him the
chance.
Trusted servants greeted Taka with deep bows as he entered the palace proper, the Imperial
Chrysanthemum picked out on the breast of their livery in jade-colored thread. “Honored
representative of the Crab Clan Yasuki-sama,” announced the foremost among the servants, a bright
stripe of rank along the wide sleeves of his kosode. “You are to be received in His Imperial Majesty’s
music room. If you would follow me?”
Obligingly, Taka nodded and trailed after the lead servant, who padded along the smooth
floors with a precise and practiced formality-if a bit quickly. A tension rose in the air, like the
sensation of a knot tied too tightly, and the Yasuki daimyō finally spoke up. “Apologies, but I am
not as young as I once was, and your speed seems a trifle—”
Suddenly they stopped, the servant slid open the shōji screen door and bowed in one elegant
motion. “The music room of His Heavenly Sovereign, honored daimyō,” he intoned. “I shall leave
you in privacy.” Another bow, again just a touch too fast, and the servant was gone.
Through the doorway was a room lined with elegant instruments: biwa made of rare wood
and gold-touched strings, stretching bronze trees lined with tiny bells, even a rare shamisen.

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Strangely, none of the lanterns within the room were lit, but Taka could make out an indistinct figure
leaning over a long zither, stroking their fingers over the strings. The Yasuki daimyō bowed deeply
at the threshold.
“My most sincere thanks, Heavenly Sovereign, for agreeing to speak with me,” he intoned-
but further speech was cut off by a deep, resonant laugh, melodious as one of the bells on the bronze
tree, and just as warm. Taka nearly jerked upright in surprise, but kept still and smothered the shock
on his face.
“The pleasure is mine—although I fear I cannot claim that title. But His Imperial Majesty,
Hantei the Thirty-Eighth, has given the duty of this audience to me.” The tone was smooth as the
curve of a peony’s petal—or the arc of a katana’s blade. “You may rise, Yasuki-dono.”
Taka straightened, looking into the icy blue eyes of Kakita Yoshi, daimyō of one of the great
families of the Crane Clan, whose smile never rode north of his nose. “Imperial Chancellor,” Taka
said, infusing his voice with a casual kindness as warm as Yoshi's smile and just as sincere. “I would
be pleased to speak with you about this most pressing matter.”
“Of course.” Yoshi replied, his voice almost a purr. “I apologize for His Majesty’s absence,
but he had other-sudden-business to attend to, and I did not want you to put on your very finest for
nothing.” He unfolded his fan, which, Taka noticed suddenly, was not his usual accessory of silk
and sandalwood, but a tessen made of pure silver-and its angled edges glittered as the Crane courtier
gestured at Taka's formal outfit. “It is very striking, indeed. Such fine silk.”
Taka inclined his head in thanks. “I am grateful for such praise. Unfortunately, it is not as
elegant as the instruments in this room Why, l could hardly see you behind that Zither. Do you play,
or just admire?”
“I am afraid I lack the leisure time to do more than appreciate instruments.” Yoshi sighed
dramatically. “But perhaps you do? Not the zither, hut possibly the mouth harp? it has such an
amusing sound.”
“I find the best use of my mouth is to bargain with it " Taka's laugh was smooth and hollow
as a blown egg “May we begin?”
The Imperial Chancellor assented and the men seated themselves, skirmishing with gestures
as they did so Yoshi fluttered his tessen absently as he gestured delicately With the other hand.
“Now. What can the powers of the Imperial Court do for you?”

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 “Of course you know of the Crab Clan’s requests, honored chancellor,” Taka began. “it is
common knowledge within the court that the situation along the Kaiu Wall is dire. The attacks from
the Shadowlands grow in size, frequency, and ferocity by the day.”
“But of course,” Yoshi murmured, his deep voice serious. “And the court weeps at your
troubles. But surely you know of the difficulties inherent in fielding troops to support the Crab?”
The fan snapped shut, and Yoshi tapped the air. “First, traveling by sea is not an option. If the cost
of sending so many ships were not already a burden on the Imperial Treasury, surely the vessels
would be a tempting target for the vile pirates that name themselves the Mantis Clan. Their leader,
Yoritomo—may his name be cursed! —has a vicious streak as deep as the scar on his ugly face.
Were but a single Mantis craft to see those ships, they would be as good as doomed!”
Taka employed a knowing nod. “Of course. The depredations of the Mantis are well known.
Perhaps such a force could travel on land instead? The way would be long, but the need of the Crab
is quite great.”
Again came that smile, accompanied by frozen blue eyes. “Ah, but what peoples would not
be upset at the sight of an army marching through their lands? Peasants are so easily frightened.
How could I put my people through the anxiety of seeing an army marching south along Crane
roads, into Crab territory?”
“Our clans have not warred for hundreds of years, honored Chancellor,” Taka pointed out
gently. “And Crane roads are not the only path to the south. There exist routes through Lion lands
as well.”
Yoshi tilted his head sympathetically, his fan tapping his chin. “Forgive my memory,
Yasuki-dono, but has the Lion Clan not already offered the Crab their help and been refused?”
Taka eased out a tense breath. “This is so, Chancellor, but the terms the Lion gave were
impossible for the Crab. They required full control over where their troops would be placed—all
respect to the Lion generals, but combat along the Kaiu Wall and against the horrors of the
Shadowlands is something with which they have no experience—”
The tessen waved as if brushing away the protests. “And you imply they could not be
bothered to learn? Alas, such pickiness makes me wonder if the Crab's need truly is as great as you
say.”
The already-dim room seemed to grow incrementally darker, and Taka spread his hands
genially, as if to ward against it. “Let us speak of jade and weapons, then, and free ourselves of the

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idea of hands to wield them. Such a shipment could easily be taken from Otosan Uchi to Kyūden
Hida, far more quickly and with less chance of attracting the Mantis.”
Yoshi gave a pained sigh. “Alas, but the coasts are largely the province of the Crane and
would be the soonest hit if such a plan failed, and such weapons fell into Yoritomo's hands. The
Crab may be short their equipment, but my own people would Find themselves beset by a scourge
made even stronger!” The Chancellor's tone tightened. “I must protect them from the Mantis
pirates—or anyone else who might come to own such weapons, for that matter.”
Taka's smile grew warmer, as if seeking to melt the opposition. “There is the possibility of
the overland route—”
“Do you not recall my opposition to the march of an army?”
“They could walk more casually, if you like.”
The moment fell, and Yoshi's smile flattened humorlessly. “Is there anything else, Yasuki-
dono?”
Taka clasped his hands and glanced down, as if holding a run of cards. “If weapons are too
dangerous, then let us discuss jade. The Crab’s supplies are running perilously low, and without it,
our troops are vulnerabie to the hideous Taint of the Shadowlands. It is enough of a burden fighting
it outside the Kaiu Wall: we would not see it inflict its agony and madness within as well.”
“Indeed not!” exclaimed Yoshi, fluttering his tessen to highlight his shock. “But you must
understand that as the Chancellor, I must follow the laws as they have been set. The jade that has
been mined by each clan is meant for them, first and foremost.”
“Surely the need of the Crab—”
“Is pressing, indeed!” Yoshi’s sonorous voice was a practiced display of sympathy “But does
the Crab truly know of the needs of the other clans, needs which I must hear and address? With each
tale, my heart cracks—but I must be as stone and remain resolute, firm, and unbreakable.”
Taka’s laugh was touched with bitterness. “The Kaiu Wall is made from stone, Chancellor.
I wish it were as unbreakable as your will, but it seems we are not so lucky.”
Yoshi smirked slightly, resting his fan against his cheek. “I am of the unpopular opinion that
there is no such thing as luck, merely the actions of humanity, or the favor of the gods—the intent
of one or the other. All else is coincidence, as in nature.” He closed his eyes dramatically. “A lone
cherry falls, golden koi swim in circles-”

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 “An ox voids its bowels.” Taka finished, and hid his chuckle as Yoshi's eyes popped open.
“Forgive me, Chancellor. As I said, negotiation is my gift, not music or poetry. And though one
cannot buy anything while the store is closed, I owed it to my clan to try all the same.” He stood,
and bowed low. “With your leave, Kakita-dono, I shall depart.”
“How... rustic.” Yoshi chuckled airlessly, and waved his tessen at the door. “It was a
pleasure, Yasuki-dono. You may go.”

The weather had turned by the time Yasuki Taka left the palace. forcing him into an agonizingly
slow walk to his apartments as diligent servants held a long bamboo umbrella over his head. The
sheeting rain made the long trek all the longer-although no eyes seemed to be watching him this
time, they were screened by dripping boughs of maple and rhododendron.
In all of Taka’s negotiations-against daimyō, bandits, noblest and peasants alike—there had
been a core conceit, an uncomplicated certainty at the center. Like a ship at sea, or a child in a
gloomy house, he sought it: the light of I want to make a deal. Whether a bright brazier or a guttering
candle flame, that light made any negotiation possible.
If the Emperor had simply canceled their meeting, Taka would have waited for another
chance to find that light in Otosan Uchi. instead, Chancellor Kakita Yoshi made the Imperial Court
not just a darkness, but a void. The flame hadn’t gone out here-it was never going to catch.
The valiant efforts of the servants prevented dampness from settling into Taka's clothes, but
sadly, could do nothing for his socks-his tabi were soaked by the time he made it back to his
apartments. Exhausted, and at least a little bit past caring about the specifics of formality at this
point, Taka gladly peeled them off his feet as he stepped out of his geta at the entrance and into
more comfortable slippers. A servant collected them from him with a bow, and vanished as expertly
as she had earlier that day. Taka frowned after her for a moment, but sighed and continued to his
apartments, sliding the door shut after him.
He was more than half way into the room before it hit him, bringing the Yasuki daimyo to a
startled stop. In a corner, a small lantern burned brightly, and beside it a bowl of incense sent twin
tendrils of smoke spiraling into the air. Taka took a deep breath, and found himself wreathed in the
scents of his homeland: cedar and camellia, spicy and warm.
Such relaxation was short-lived, however. Upon opening his eyes, Taka also noticed a
hooded figure sitting across the room, and he started despite himself. “F-forgive me,” he stuttered,

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then cleared his throat and returned to a semblance of calm. “I was not expecting any visitors, and
my servants did not announce you properly. If this incense is your doing, I thank you kindly for it—
and I would know you properly.”
The stranger chuckled warmly and stood, revealing himself to be a tall man with an athletic
build. “Formality is about as familiar to you as those clothes,” he observed, “although to your credit,
you wear both well.” He pushed back his hood, revealing long black hair, bright green eyes-and a
long scar across his face.
“Yoritomo, I presume,” Taka said after a moment, and the stranger smiled and nodded. “A-
unique pleasure.”
The leader of the Mantis Clan grinned. “Unflappable. I admire that. I have been looking
forward to meeting you for some time. I have a business proposition that you might find enticing.”
Taka nodded and was about to inquire further when a large sackcloth was snapped over his
head, and the world was nearly swallowed in darkness. Only the dim light of the lantern was visible
through the cloth, receding as he was carried away.

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“Prepare yourself, Yasuki-dono. I fear this might be a little bright.”
Yasuki Taka appreciated the warning, but the light that stung his eyes after the sackcloth
hood had been removed pained him all the same. He did his best to look composed and unworried
even as he blinked and rubbed his sore wrists where his restraints had been. The blur next to him—
ah, a man, yes. Long black hair and a scar marked him as Yoritomo, notorious pirate to some,
dashing leader to others, and the Champion of the Mantis clan to all. Yoritomo nodded, the apology
apparent in his visage even through Taka’s blurred vision.
“Welcome to my second home, respected daimyō—and I do apologize for bringing you here
in this particular manner,” he continued, his voice rough from shouting orders on stormy seas. “Even
silken ropes can chafe. But I imagined that if we had the ill fortune to be caught, it would be a great
deal easier if the representative of the Crab Clan appeared to have been carried off by vile
kidnappers, rather than escorted by their rival’s greatest scourge.”
“I can appreciate that,” said Taka, nodding. “Even the wisest plan involves some risk and
sacrifice. I’m no blushing young courtesan who despairs at a blemish, after all. Nobody checks my
wrists save those who imagine I’m concealing something in my sleeves.”
“Which I imagine you do, on occasion.”
Taka cracked a smile. “You do seem to know me well, so-called Son of Storms. Although I
wish I knew your secret tunnels underneath Otosan Uchi even a fraction as well. Passages
underneath the Imperial City that even the Scorpion Clan are unaware of?” The older man leaned
back on the bench on which he sat and gave a look that was half indulgent smile, half sly smirk.
“I’m certain, however, that if you’d hustled me out of there simply with my hands bound, that would

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have worked just as well. I wonder if putting that hood over my head and bagging me up in that sack
were more meant to advance that ‘kidnapping’ fiction...or to protect your own secrets?”
There was a tight pause in the air, and Taka’s gut clenched reflexively, waiting for a negative
outcome—but suddenly Yoritomo laughed aloud, white teeth flashing, and the Yasuki family
daimyō quietly relaxed. “I had a feeling I would like you,” the Mantis Champion chuckled, his dark
eyes intense, “but one can only trust the words of spies so far, especially when it comes to one’s
own preferences. I am gratified to learn they were correct.”
Yoritomo rose from his seat and walked across the room, and Taka blinked the last of the
blur from his eyes, surveying the room around him. It was elegantly paneled with cedar—the
pleasant scent reminded Taka of the tall forests around his home in Yasuki Yashiki—and adequately
lit by flickering lights fixed to the walls in brass and glass sconces. Wooden shutters—not sliding
paper screens—covered the windows, their slats pressed shut and secured with metal latches. The
furniture was not only raised above the ground, in gaijin fashion, but secured in place with brass
rivets. Taka’s lips twitched, hiding a smile. A random visitor might conclude from the numerous
latches, locks, and rivets that the Mantis Champion was paranoid about theft, but anyone as savvy
in trade as Taka knew the accumulated cost of such rare materials would make any sensible person
wary of the same.
Snapping his attention back to his present company, Taka watched patiently as Yoritomo
opened a drawer on a large chest and withdrew a package, sliding the drawer shut with the barest
squeak of smoothly sanded wood before locking it once more. Smiling, he handed the package to
Taka, who took it and tried not to betray a small surprise that it seemed to be a simple bundle of
clothing. “This is an awkward thing to ask, Yasuki-dono, but I ask that you change your clothes
before we proceed. I would like you show you something outside of my quarters, and your current
outfit is quite—distinctive.” Yoritomo gave a casual nod. “It could very well attract the wrong type
of attention.”
Taka glanced down at his finery—silken court garb with the mon of the Yasuki family picked
out in careful embroidery on the chest, rumpled and a little soiled from the journey but still obviously
valuable—and chuckled as he stood. “You could say that, yes.” He opened the bundle, and was
pleased to see it contained a loose set of kosode and hakama, in a well-made but plain fabric.
“I know they hardly suit someone of your rank. But subterfuge...” Yoritomo gave a small,
knowing smile. “That, I believe, is something you are as familiar with as your own house.” Another

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bow, and the tall man exited the room, barely opening the door wide enough for him to pass before
sliding it shut with hardly a sound.
Yasuki Taka unfolded the clothing, taking a moment to run his hands over the material—
simple, but more comfortable by far than the burlap he’d been bagged in like a sack of rice. He laid
out the clothes and took a moment to examine his own finery; as little as he liked wearing it, it did
seem practical to keep an eye on maintaining its quality. It was a small marvel that his clothes had
survived the nonsense of being carried through countless tunnels, up and down stairs and rough
slopes, all without anything staining or tearing the fine silk or snagging the embroidery. Although
it was possibly less of a marvel than one in a series of strange events, compounded by the fact that
somewhere in the stretch of time between Taka’s abduction and his arrival here was a bit of
fogginess, an almost imperceptible break, as if he’d dozed off. He couldn’t have been taken too far
from Otosan Uchi—a prolonged absence from the Forbidden City would be taken with some
alarm—but where he could be was a bit of a puzzle. While the interior of Yoritomo’s dwelling was
certainly distinct, it was difficult to say if that same uniqueness would be reflected on the outside...
Not that I didn’t appreciate the offer of a “business proposition” from the head of the Mantis
Clan. Taka sighed, moving to shed his formal clothes. But if I had known it was going to involve
being abducted from my apartments and taken gods-know-where, I might have asked for a moment
more to think about it!
Ah, well. “A predictable life is a dead one,” Taka quoted to himself, and chuckled. If that’s
true, I may be the most alive man in all of Rokugan. Mirth turned to annoyance as he tugged at the
knots of his formal wear—just as he suspected, the servants had tied his hoeki no hō too tightly—
and with diligent struggle, he managed to extricate himself from the elaborate tunic and remove the
rest of his garments, dropping them almost spitefully into a pile on the nearby bench. The peasant
garb felt like rounding a mountain pass to see one’s own home again after a long trip, albeit earlier
than expected. The inclusion of a money purse—empty though it was—with the outfit made Taka
absolutely sure that Yoritomo knew of his secret exploits as a peddler. Taka chuckled to himself as
he tied on the belt.
Yoritomo is a true Mantis’s man—any opening to show me up, and he’s already struck. I
wonder if I’ve ever sold the man anything before, not knowing who he was, but him knowing me full
well? The Yasuki daimyō suddenly hesitated mid-knot, his chuckle a trifle more sour. If so, I do
hope I gave him a good deal.

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 Taka smoothed out the small creases in the kosode, smirking to himself at the sight of being
back in familiar clothes again—but after a breath his hands stilled, and the smirk faded. The last
time he had been in such garb was before his trip to Otosan Uchi, before the urgent mission from
his clan champion, before all the letters from his son describing the piled dead of Crab warriors and
enemies and the smoke from their pyres.
Taka regarded himself in the burnished silver plate fastened to the wall and took in the
specifics of the outfit he wore—blue-grey and brown, the Crab Clan colors. The clothes were a
subtle gesture, and as intentional as every single word Yoritomo chose, diligently disguising his
regional accent. Despite all of the stories painting the Mantis as brutes, there were obviously many
layers to the man, and his willingness to endanger himself by kidnapping Taka directly hinted at a
deep importance to whatever this offer might be. And though it seemed impossible that the Mantis
were in such a dire position as the Crab, the risks they’d taken just to get him here spoke of
something severe.
The older man caught himself rubbing his hands together in anticipation and stilled them
quickly, making his face serene and businesslike. “Daikoku-no-Kami, Fortune of Wealth and
Commerce,” Taka whispered, “you certainly seem to be listening, since you’ve displayed such
humor in the events of the day so far. You helped me talk my way out of a bandit ambush once.
Now, it’s pirates. You and I both know I’m in my element here, but...” He grinned to himself. “A
little luck never hurt.”
Taka turned to face the door, and saw it held shut by another brass latch. “A bit of suspicion,
imported from a gaijin or two?” he mused aloud, and then grunted with surprise as the door turned
out to be surprisingly heavy. “Or is such suspicion grown from home?” With bit of uncharacteristic
bluster, Taka huffed and pulled the door open wide—and found himself speechless as he took in the
scene beyond.
No city street or mountain holdfast lay before him, nor forest stronghold either. The deck of
a ship, impressive in length and breadth—constructed from the same mountain cedar as in the room
behind him—stretched out, eerily still atop calm blue waters, a mass of waving marshy reeds
beyond. Twin black sails, battened with long horizontal beams of bamboo and emblazoned with the
teal-green mon of the Mantis Clan, fluttered idly in the constant breeze. Sailors worked at an
unhurried pace, barely glancing at the newcomer in their midst.

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 A sudden sharp whistle nearly made him jump out of his skin. He wheeled around and looked
up to see Yoritomo above him, leaning against a railing on the cabin’s roof and grinning.
“Welcome, my friend, to the Bitter Wind, flagship of the First Storm.” The Mantis leader
smiled with an almost parental pride as he gestured to one of the steep companionways leading up
to the deck upon which he stood. “You and I have much to discuss.”
Yasuki Taka steeled himself with a deep breath and grasped hold of the railing leading up to
the topmost deck of the Bitter Wind—brass again, another nod to both Yoritomo’s gaijin influences
and his wealth—and ascended the steps to where the Mantis Champion awaited him.
Yoritomo gave a small bow as Taka arrived; a subtle show of respect that, with Taka in his
merchant’s garb, would have been questionable for any outsider watching too long. The only other
person on the upper deck, an older woman in teal-green linen robes, glanced at the pair but did not
cease gently waving her hands, as if making shapes within mist.
“A ...unique vessel,” Taka said at last, rubbing his chin in reflexive consternation. “I cannot
say I’ve seen any like it before.”
“That is because none other exist like it,” said Yoritomo with pride. “Bitter Wind is of my
own design, combining the innovations of ships from any and all outsiders with our own Rokugani
style. It is the way of the Mantis: to observe, to adapt, to improve. The pride of my clan sits here in
the planks below our feet.”
“The unusually stable planks, I’ve noticed,” Taka added, crossing his arms as if slightly
uneasy. “Part of me wonders if all this is an illusion! I close my eyes and I’m half-convinced I’m
still on land.”
Yoritomo gestured to the middle-aged woman nearby, who acknowledged with a simple dip
of her head. “Most of that—and the finer points of your travel here—are due to Kudaka.” The Mantis
Champion smiled with a fierce, friendly affection. “She is the finest of my tenkinja, our priestesses
of tempests and tides. None exist in the whole of the Emerald Empire who are as talented as they.”
The older woman clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes a bit, a gesture that would have elicited
gasps in the Imperial Court.
“Yoritomo here loves to hear ’imself talk, that’s sure,” she sighed, her tone strong with the
accent of the Islands of Silk and Spice. “Full of compliments as sails on a blustery day. ’Tis not only
I that handles this task, but the twins on the deck there.” She jerked her head at two similarly clad
slender figures at midships below, crouching on either side of the boat and waving their hands at the

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water like children at a fountain. Beneath their fingers, the sea was glassy and still as a mirror. “And
it’s tradition, this, just askin’ the kami for their aid. We try not to do it too long—makes ’em antsy.
But they know it’s for important company, so they help out.”
Taka laughed a little despite himself. “I thank you for stating it so plainly. Even Crab
shugenja are somewhat more—opaque—when they describe their gifts.” Kudaka shrugged.
“I’d talk your ear off if you let me, but this still needs my work,” she jerked her head at
Yoritomo, who smirked almost like a child caught misbehaving. “Go on, then. You bragged, now
about your business and let me work.”
Yoritomo gave a playful half-bow. “Certainly,” and led Taka back down the opposite
companionway toward the bow of the ship, as if attempting to outpace the dismissive snort that
Kudaka leveled at his retreating back.
The smooth cedar of the Bitter Wind’s deck barely creaked beneath the feet of the two men—
a shock after the constant clamor of the Imperial Palace’s much-vaunted nightingale floors and their
chorus of whistling squeaks. Around them, sailors clad in black with sashes of teal moved with a
deliberate, unhurried pace, weaving around them as rocks in a stream, their respectful nods to their
captain and daimyō barely perceptible in their efficiency. Yoritomo strode with the purpose of a
man totally at ease in his domain, Taka drifting along in his wake.
“The world has divisions,” Yoritomo said suddenly, at once solemn. “The elements, the spirit
realms, life and death. They are useful, like roles on a ship. I am captain, and there are those below
me who obey, and those who obey them. Hierarchies, lineages, chains of command—I know the
Crab can appreciate that one—that ensure that if one were to fall, all would not.
“But there are those who take such divisions too far, who place division where there is none,
who turn petty slights into deep divides.” The daimyō frowned, and Taka quickened his pace to hear
him as the tall man’s voice quieted. “This I cannot understand. It is not the Mantis way, even from
our very beginning. Once your clan and mine were the same people—and when my ancestor
Kaimetsu-Uo was not chosen as the Crab Champion, he left to forge his own path, and there was no
bad blood between our people. We became different, not—less.”
“I think I divine your meaning,” Taka said with a wry smirk. “That is not so much how the
Crane do things.”
Yoritomo snorted, then sighed. “Truly, I bear the Crane no ill will, but more pity. Once,
Mantis and Crane were allies, and they trusted our skills as mercenaries. Our power was respected,

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and all understood the importance of trade across the waters. Now, Crane eyes do not look over the
sea with wonder, to see lands beyond full of riches. They simply see a pretty view to be painted.
They have grown self-absorbed, petty—”
“And their labeling of you as pirates doesn’t help much, I imagine,” quipped Taka, eliciting
a grim smile from the other man.
“It does not. But to be fair, we have done what needed doing, and where others shied away,
we took responsibility. Something that the Crab Clan knows all too well, I imagine.” Taka nodded,
and the two men leaned against the bow of the ship—Yoritomo a great deal more casually than
Taka—and took in the view beyond. The Bitter Wind was moored near a marshy inlet, where sea
and land birds alike hunted in the tall grasses as dusk approached. Tallest among them was a grey
crane, regal in stature, who cocked its head and gazed into the water closely, tilting its head in
minuscule motions as it struggled to track its prey in the murky water.
“I have a great sympathy for your clan, you know.” Taka glanced up at Yoritomo, whose
eyes remained fixed on the hunting birds. “The samurai of the Yasuki were given an impossible
choice: give up their power within a clan who disregarded them, or leave to join the Crab and risk
ruin in their attempt to earn greater respect.
“And starting the first and only inter-clan war as a result,” Taka sighed. “A fact at which the
Crane still chafe.”
“A paradox of fools, then, who treat the past as if it were present, and the present as if it were
a dream.” Yoritomo’s eyes flicked to the sky, and wordlessly he pointed as a cormorant, feathers
slick as oil, dove almost soundlessly into the water. Moments later, the gangly bird hopped out of
the water, silvery fish wriggling in its beak. Yoritomo laughed and clapped his hands together in
celebration, watching the cormorant gulp down its meal.“
Ah, and look—my favorite bird,” he chuckled. “Inelegant, but adaptable. Changes to fit the
situation it finds itself in, air or water, and succeeds.” He smirked at Taka, tilting his head at the
bird. “I know well why you were sent to Otosan Uchi, Yasuki-dono, but in its way, your mission
was impossible. Crane’s eye was watching you, and the glitter of your scales beneath the waters.
But now you are just a drab thing to them, neither fish nor bird, so they disregard you and turn away.
And that is why you have won.”
Taka chuckled, and threw up his hands. “I fear I may have been out-bargained, and terms
haven’t even been discussed! The fearsome Yoritomo is a poet sailor and knows I am a peddler lord.

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Very well, then—the sun is setting, and now is the opportune hour to make a deal. You know my
needs”—he fixed the Mantis Clan Champion with a measured stare—“and now I must know your
terms.”
Yoritomo nodded, and crossed his arms authoritatively across his broad chest. “Smuggling
is simply trade by another name. I have many fleets—with ships far less showy than this one—who
could bring to you a steady stream of the weapons that the Crab Clan so dearly requires. We lack
only the means.”
Taka shook his head and grinned. “A simple matter. It is nothing strange to ship barrels to a
distillery—such as my Friendly Traveler Sake Works. Weapons lie within the false bottoms, and
we send you those same barrels back, replaced with the proper cost in coin.” He spread his hands,
all canny merchant. “With a little sake in them too, for the health of your troops.”
Yoritomo nodded his enthusiastic consent, and Taka carefully folded his arms in his sleeves,
his gaze suddenly sharp.
“But Yoritomo-dono, I cannot believe the Mantis are hurting for wealth, or have a particular
craving for the koku of the Crab Clan. There is something else that you want, and if you are not
plain with it, I am afraid that we cannot truly help one another.”
Yoritomo’s gaze hardened, and after a moment, the large man nodded. “I spoke earlier of
divisions, and how they should not be so common. My clan sees little value between the minor clans
and the great ones, of captain and sailor—when the wave breaks upon the deck, it pulls at my feet,
same as any commoner’s. And my station will not save me if we founder in a storm.
“But I cannot be a leader and not strive for greater for my people. Our founder came from a
great clan, and I would see that same greatness for we, his descendants, to prove we are worthy of
his blood. But simply saying it does not make it so.” His eyes bored into Taka’s, dark as an oncoming
storm. “The Mantis require a great ally to help us make this claim, to argue for our cause with the
Emperor, or my hopes are for nothing.”
Yasuki Taka was silent a long moment, one finger idly tapping at his lips. Finally, he spoke
in measured tones. “You have my understanding, and my sympathy,” he said slowly. “But such an
act would require the approval of the Crab Clan Champion, and I am not he.”
Yoritomo’s gaze did not waver. “Did not Lord Hida Kisada send you to Otosan Uchi to gain
what aid the Crab required? Wouldn’t that which I offer—not only weapons, but friendship—fit that
bill?” A tiny smile tugged the corner of his mouth, the brightness like a flash of lightning in his eyes.

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“If you did not have his permission to act as you felt you must for the good of the clan, you would
never have been sent in the first place.”
Taka narrowed his eyes in a glare... which turned into a wry grin, and laughter followed. “I
never thought I would be outmaneuvered in a deal twice in one day,” he sighed, “or that I would
find myself grateful on both occasions. Very well, Yoritomo-dono, Champion of the Mantis. When
you stand and speak for the greatness of your clan, the Crab will stand for you as well.” Another
smirk. “And in the meantime, we could use those weapons you offered.”
“A deal!” Yoritomo cried, causing several birds nearby to look up, startled, and take wing.
“And there is something else I would speak to you about. Not a new deal, precisely, but an
addendum.” Taka raised an eyebrow as a pair of sailors approached, a large chest held between
them. At a gesture from Yoritomo, they threw open the lid, revealing the contents within covered
by a cloth bearing the Crane mon. Carefully, the sailors stepped aside as Yoritomo reached down
and pulled away the cloth—revealing row after row of gleaming jade rods.
Wordlessly, Taka moved forward and picked up one of the slender slips of precious
gemstone, turning it over in his hand.
A battle at the Kaiu Wall, and men shrieking as the Taint consumed those unprotected by
the power of the pale green material, blisters crawling out of their throats and across their faces.
Courtiers at Otosan Uchi idly fingering bracelets and pendants of carved jade, whose cast-
off chips might have been able to save the life of a Crab warrior.
The music room of the palace, Kakita Yoshi’s ice-blue stare, and his echoing, cruel farewell
as he crushed the hope of Taka’s bargain to save his people.
In the growing dusk, the cormorant dove into the water once again, a black shape rippling
beneath the waves. With a splash, the cormorant flew to perch atop the trunk, silvery fish in its
mouth. With a single gulp, the gangly bird swallowed the succulent fish. Taka looked up at
Yoritomo.
The Yasuki daimyō bowed deeply to the Mantis Champion and grinned as he straightened
back up. “You’ve got a deal.”

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The humming-bulb arrow screeched as it broke the forest canopy. The buck erupted from a nearby
bush with a cry, springing into panicked gallop. The woods swallowed it up. Shinjo Yasamura
watched it bound away, then patted his horse and clicked his tongue.
“I should have taken a shot,” he muttered. His horse grunted affirmatively.
Shinjo Shono appeared within moments, unstrung bow in hand. “Which way?” he asked,
soft eyes searching.
Yasamura gestured with his bow. “It’s tired—won’t be long now.”
Shono nodded and fished the bowstring from his saddlebag. He tied it to one end of his yumi,
then thrust the bow into the metal hook at the bottom of his saddle. Creases formed on his smooth
forehead as he bent the bow and guided his string.
Yasamura stroked the short beard carpeting his square jaw. “It was lying flat in the brush,”
he continued, “likely hoping we’d canter by. It’s smart.”
“Will you just finish the poor thing?” came Shinjo Haruko’s voice from the edge of the
clearing. She slid on her padded archery glove as her white pony brought her into the clearing. "If
it is too stressed, the meat will be no good.”
Shono finished stringing his bow. His boyish eyes sparked. “You can have the meat, Haruko-
Chan. I am after a new trophy for the red hall.”
“And someday, you may win one,” Yasamura teased. His horse bolted, trailing Yasamura’s
laughter in its wake. Shono’s protests rattled the clearing as he galloped after.
Haruko sighed, turning in her plated saddle toward the woman behind her. “I should just
give up on my fresh seared venison and embrace my venison hot pot future.”

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 From her horse, Shinjo Altansarnai warmly smiled. The summer breeze played with her tight
midnight braid and lavender sleeves, the sun a splash of gold in her grey eyes.
Haruko tilted her head sideways, her walnut ponytail swinging. “You’re staring again. What
is it?” She looked down at herself, searching for anything askew among her purple kimono and the
black padded muneate shielding her chest.
“It is nothing.” Altansarnai looked up beneath the shade of the trees. Her smile touched her
eyes, cracking faint wrinkles. “I am only admiring the peonies.”
Haruko followed her gaze to florid blooms suspended among the swaying jade verdure of
the summer canopy.
“Already they are dropping petals,” the older woman continued, “they bloom so briefly,
lasting only a few days. Just a breeze or splash of rain, and they surrender, popping like a burst
bubble. Is it truly such a burden to hold their blooms for just a moment longer?”
Haruko's sharp eyes softened. “Mother?”
Altansarnai chuckled, shaking her head. “It is fine, Haruko-chan. I get this way when I see
my children all together. We should do so more often.” A nostalgic gleam twinkled in her grey eyes.
“It was not that long ago that you were my little foal.”
“Here we go.” Haruko procured her bow and began to string it.
“You used to cling to my leg. I carried you everywhere I went. Even in the Five Wind Court,
there you were.”
Haruko’s horse snorted. “I know, Yue,” Haruko replied, “but it is best to just let her talk.”
“Of course,” Altansarnai continued, “had I known you were paying attention during those
meetings, you would be the one handling them now.”
A crash came from the woods. The two women paused at an indecipherable curse, followed
by what was clearly Yasamura’s laughter.
“I understand congratulations are in order,” Altansarnai said. “It is a great honor to be
considered for the Imperial Guard.”
Bow strung, Haruko absently picked through her quiver. “Perhaps so, but I Imagine that is
as far as it will get.”
“With all your recommendations? I am not so sure.”

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 Haruko fixed her gaze, rejecting arrow after arrow. “An entire book of recommendations
would not be enough to forestall an imperial censure, much less impress whoever becomes the
Emerald Champion.”
Altansarnai’s horse moved to Haruko’s side without so much as a whispered request. She
patted her daughter's hand. “It is folly to predict what those in power will do. I have learned that
more than a few times. As for Imperial censure...” She shrugged. “I do not think the Miya would
support it.”
“Perhaps,” came Haruko’s reply.
Altansarnai looked up once more. Petals were falling. Her thin fingers curled around her
midnight braid, and she tugged it.
“I could have made it certain.” she whispered.
Haruko blanched. Her ponytail swept an arc as she spun. “No. Mother...”
“Had l agreed to the treaty, you would have your appointment, Yasamura would have his
estate, and Shono would have his—”
Her mother trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid. A breeze raked petals from the arched canopy.
For a long time, neither spoke.
“Why don’t you appoint Yasamura as your heir?” Haruko asked. “He is the eldest, after all.”
“It would not make him happy.” Altansarnai replied.
“Is that required?” Haruko met her mother's stone eyes. “Some say not wanting the position
is a boon.”
“Is that so?” Altansarnai smiled. “We tried to teach you tea ceremony while you were a
child, and you fought your sensei with every step. You had no patience for it. Predictably, of course.
Even the Iuchi at your birth declared you would be most at home in a storm.” She gestured to
Haruko's yumi. “But the very first day they put a bow in your hands, you outperformed all your
peers and proved yourself my daughter. The difference is simple: you hated one and loved the other.
So you see, happiness makes difficult tasks easy. Thus we should pursue what we want.”
“In that case,” Haruko replied, “you were absolutely right to reject the treaty.”
Altansarnai paused.
“You would have been miserable wasting away tied to the stall of some unworthy Ikoma
warden, like a trophy to be showed off. Whatever we would have gained from the treaty, it would
not have replaced what we would have lost.” Haruko finally selected an arrow from her quiver and

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nocked it, looking into the woods. “It is easier to worry over a foal when it is in your stable. I will
forge my own destiny, and I do not need some treaty to do it. Whatever stands in their way, the Five
Winds must never be tamed!”
Altansarnai’s eyes shone. “You will have a great future then, Haruko-chan.”
A shout broke the air. The deer leapt into the clearing, its pointed antlers raking the canopy.
Haruko smoothly pointed the arrow, drew, twisted her wrist, exhaled, and released.
The deer collapsed and lay still.
“Ha!” Yasamura’s hawkish face appeared only moments behind. “What a shot!”
Shono appeared next, frowning. Haruko's arrow protruded from the creature’s eye like a
planted flag. He sighed and lowered his weapon. “Che.” he grunted.
Yasamura laughed, his hooked nose pointing at the sky. “She outdid you again, Shono-kun.
But you should be used to it by now, ne?” He elbowed his brother in the side.
“Well done, Sister.” Shono forced a reluctant smile. “I doubt I shall ever be as skilled at the
bow as you.”
Haruko calmly unstrung her bow. “It is silly to speak what everyone knows, Shono-kun, but
it is still good to hear you say it.”
Shono sighed and bowed. “This victory is yours, then, Haruko-chan. Well earned.” He
straightened. “I suppose the beast belongs to you, then.”
“Well,” Yasamura said, dismounting, “to be quite even about it, we all contributed to this
victory. Mother is the one who spotted the buck and drove it from the herd, Shono tired it out, and
Haruko ended the chase. And I,” he added, straightening his back, “composed a poem about it.”
Haruko smirked. “The most important role of all.”
His eyes twinkled. “You might even get a mention, Sister. If I remember.”
“Then I suppose we all four share this victory,” Shono mused.
Yasamura kneeled beside the creature, seizing it by the antler. “Indeed, Shono-kun.
Therefore to commemorate our shared victory, I propose we commission four daggers, and let the
handles be made from this antler.”
“A splendid idea,” Haruko agreed. “Four points, four daggers.”
Altansarnai smiled at her children and nodded. “I will commission them upon our return.”
The siblings shared a triumphant look.

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 “And we should commission a fifth from the other antler,” Altansarnai added. "So that there
will be one for Shahai-san.”
The last of the peony blossoms fell to the shadowed ground. The keening buzz of the cicadas
fell suddenly quiet.
“What did she do to catch this deer?” Shono asked.
“She is here in spirit,” Altansarnai replied. “The gesture would mean much, to her and to
luchi Daiyu-sama: a reminder that she is welcome among us. She may as well be your sister, Shono.”
Yasamura nodded, but Haruko looked away.
“If that is your wish, Mother,” Shono uttered, dismounting to tie up their catch.
Altansarnai watched his back in silence. He said nothing else for the rest of the trip.

Altansarnai found Shono in the family stables. He was brushing his horse’s mane and whispering
into its ear. A knee-high gate enclosed the stall, and a painted shōji screen separated the horse from
the night-cloaked courtyard. Altansarnai waited in the aisle until Shono finally saw her, bowing his
head in greeting.
“Tsubasa is looking quite healthy.” she said. She stroked the beast’s neck and offered it a
flat palmful of spindly maroon carrots.
“He is restless,” Shono replied. “I think he resents the fact that I brought Umeboshi this
afternoon instead of him.”
She scratched the horse’s snout as it chewed the thin roots. “It is for his own good that he is
not ridden every day. He has always been a hard keeper. If you always take him out, he will get too
thin again.” She paused, then looked pointedly at Shono. “But then, those beneath your care do not
always understand when you act in their best interests, do they?”
“Tsubasa understands,” Shono said. “He just disagrees.”
Altansarnai watched Shono’s youthful face. “When did this happen?” His brow pinched.
“When did you feel that you could no longer tell me everything? You’ve been avoiding me, even
today. We used to have no secrets, Shono. When did that change?”
The horses shifted in their stalls. Shono’s fists clenched. He burst. “Is it true that you turned
down the Lion treaty simply to preserve your own happiness? That you put yourself before the
welfare of the clan?”
She stared at her son with wide eyes. "Who dared to say—?”

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 “No one, mother. No one but I.” Shono glared with a red face. “You know better than most
what the treaty would have done for the clan. If the Lion had accepted us, the other clans would
have no excuse but to do otherwise! All it would have required was for you to endure for the sake
of your kin." He turned away. "All my life, you told me that a good champion must put his best
interests after that of the clan. How am I to tell my future Children the same, knowing that their
grandmother, given the Chance, would not?”
“Is that what you truly think?” she whispered.
He did not reply.
She stepped forward, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Shono, you are my sun and sky, and
your heart is like an untamed river. But you have grown bold, and you are still young. You see only
what is directly in front of you. Just as a horse that challenges its rider will surely doom them both,
so too will you, should you not trust the path I have chosen.”
He looked back. “Can you at least say that, whatever the reasons, your own desires were not
among them?”
Her jaw clenched. “We are all fighting invisible battles, Shono. It is not for one to judge
those of another.”
“So you say.” he replied.
Altansarnai opened her mouth to speak, but then paused. Tsubasa lazily craned his neck
toward the courtyard. Muted shouts erupted from beyond the shōji screen. She stepped away from
her son and cast the screen aside.
A young woman knelt in the courtyard grass, surrounded by guards and retainers of Far
Traveler Castle. The Utaku family mon, a solid lavender circle, beamed from her traveling garments.
With both hands planted, she struggled for breath.
Altansarnai stepped out of the stables. As one, her retainers bowed, and the guards lowered
their heads.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.
“Honored lady,” spoke one of the retainers, “this is Utaku Yumino-sama. She has come with
an urgent message, but will not relinquish it.” He cast the battle maiden a resentful glare. “She
claims it is only for your ears.”
The woman panted. “Forgive me, my lady...”

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 Altansarnai looked down at the struggling woman. “Utaku Yumino-san?” She paused. “The
one stationed at... Hisu Mori Mura, yes? Your mother was the hero of the Kōbaku earthquake?”
Yumino’s eyes widened. Her cheeks flushed. “Y-yes, my lady,” she croaked, “as you say.”
Altansamai frowned at the woman’s hoarse voice. Only now did she notice the tan sheen of
road dust on the woman’s windswept kimono and curtain of frayed hair. “Bring this woman some
water,” she commanded. “She has been riding for some time.”
“Four hours.” Yumino said. Wetness gathered at the rims of her reddening eyes. “I nearly
broke poor Kiso, but he understood.”
“What has happened?” Altarnsarnai demanded.
“The Lion seized the village, Shinjo-ue.”
The retainers exchanged looks. One of the guards spat. Aitansarnai nodded. “How many?”
“A small force, my lady. Mostly ashigaru. They marched beneath the banner of the Matsu
family.”
“Casualties?”
“Only one. Lady Hisako challenged their commander. With her death, she secured our right
to evacuate. The others led the villagers toward City of the Rich Frog. I was entrusted to deliver this
news. I...” She closed her eyes. “I should have stayed and fought. I have failed Hisako-sama.”
Altansarnai shook her head. “What point would there be in throwing your life away? No,
Yumino-san. You did the right thing.”
The Utaku reached into her robes and drew out a small scroll, which she offered with both
hands. It was sealed with the image of a lion’s paw glutching a sword handle: the Matsu mon.
As Altansarnai read, Shono came up behind her. His eyes narrowed. “Writ of Official
Intention,” he quoted, his voice rising in a questioning tone.
“Behold, Lion courtesy.” Altansarnai looked to her retainers. “They claim that because Hisu
Mori Mura was among the named villages to be traded in the treaty, they are entitled to it as
compensation for what they attest was a broken promise.”
“Outrageous,” remarked one retainer.
As she continued, her grey eyes widened. She began to close the scroll, but Shono reached
out before she could, clasping the edge of the paper. “Is this true?” he demanded. “The commander
who led this attack, it was Matsu Mitsuko?”
The battle maiden nodded.

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 Murmurs filtered through the crowd. That Mitsuko and Shono’s betrothal was a term of the
failed treaty was no secret to anyone here.
Shono looked away toward a pale and distant moon. It was waning and nearly gone, only a
glowing sliver remaining to suggest it was ever there. “Mitsuko,” he whispered.
A man With the Ide mon stepped forward. “My lady, it seems the Matsu have seen fit to
equip us with adequate cause to request Imperial intervention. This is an illegal seizure of land. At
your word, I can deploy a message to the Forbidden City. With the blessing of the air kami, it should
arrive quickly.”
Her retainers waited. At last, Altansarnai spoke. “I will not wait on the Imperials. The Lion
must learn they cannot simply take what they want.” She looked to the Ide. “Bring me no less than
twenty-five warriors who are ready to ride. And prepare Yuki.” The lde’s eyebrows rose at the name
of the ancestral armor of the Unicorn. Altansarnai nodded. “I will handle this personally.”
“Wait,” Shono spoke. “This is a test. Such an attack is beneath your notice, mother. Send
me instead.”
Once more, the retainers exchanged murmurs. Altansarnai regarded her son. “Shono,” she
began.
He stepped forward, meeting her eyes with a determined face. “They sent Mitsuko because
they believed it would divide us. They think they can leverage my personal feelings against the clan.
Let me show them that such tactics do not work.” He looked to the others. “Let me prove to all that
your future champion cannot be so easily manipulated!”
They all turned to Shinjo Altansarnai. Shono lowered his head. “Very well,” she finally said.
Yumino leapt to her feet. “Shono-sama, I beg you...allow me to accompany you. I know the
village layout and the forces holding it. I can be of great use to you.”
“So be it,” Shono said. “But I will not risk the health of an Utaku steed, and yours must
recover from the ride. You will make do with one of mine.” He looked to a stablehand “Show her
Tsubasa and let them be acquainted.”
Yumino bowed deeply. “I will not fail you, Shono-sama.”
The guards dispersed. The retainers filtered out of the courtyard. Shono made for the keep,
sending servants ahead to fetch his sword. But Altansarnai pulled him aside.
“You realize you will have to face her on the battlefield,” she said. “I would have spared you
that, Shono. Are you prepared to draw steel against her?”

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 “You mean, am I prepared to set my personal feelings aside and do what is best for the clan?”
Shono met her gaze. “Of course I am, Mother. Is that not what a champion must do?”
As Shono walked away, Altansarnai stood cold in his shadow. The peach trees lining the
courtyard had dropped all their blossoms and stood bare in the dusty night.

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 A shogi opening move is like choosing a medicine. Pick the right one,
and you gain strength. Pick the wrong one, and you die.
– Agasha Seigen, Shogi Master

To be kept waiting was an insult, yet Ide Tadaji endured.

The Unicorn Clan ambassador shook his sleeves, casting off a bit of the rain which had
soaked him on his walk to the Miya Palace, and he drew closer to the small brazier of coals which
had been lit to counter the damp of early summer. Towns and villages across Rokugan were mired
in mud from the torrential rains of the season, and although the Forbidden City was saved from that
fate by its cobblestone streets, it was just as wet.
Rain falls upon Emperor and peasant alike, Tadaji mused, recalling the passage from the
Tao of Shinsei.
It had certainly fallen today. The walk from his permanent residence at the Unicorn Clan
Guest House was not terribly far, but the rain had been a constant and unwelcome companion, and
made the walk seem even farther for a man with a club foot. By the time Tadaji had reached the
palace of the Miya family, it felt as though he had been pushing his way through a waterfall, and his
clothes hung from his frame like wet moss from a tree. His foot, which had kept him from riding
the horses of his clan his entire life, now ached terribly. He shifted his weight as best he could,
leaning heavily upon his cane.
As tradition dictated, Tadaji had walked alone, save for a single bodyguard. Even though
this visit was unofficial, no ambassador—much less a family daimyō—could be expected to travel
without some protection, even within the safest part of the capital. His bodyguard was a formidable
one. Utaku Kamoko had ridden hard all the way to Otosan Uchi, charged with delivering news
directly to the Emperor from the Unicorn Clan Champion herself, Shinjo Altansarnai.

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 She was not at all pleased to discover that a samurai, even the commander of the feared
Battle Maidens of the Unicorn, would not be permitted to address the Emperor directly. As official
ambassador to the Imperial Court, the duty fell to Tadaji—but when the time came to choose a
bodyguard for this visit, he knew that he could choose none other than the fierce warrior who had
ridden the breadth of Rokugan. It was a way to allow her to be present at the delivery of the news,
thereby fulfilling her obligation. Kamoko made it very clear that she viewed this as only a marginally
acceptable solution, but grudgingly accepted her duty with a minimum of outbursts—a rarity for the
fiery battle maiden. Tadaji smiled inwardly as he saw her, glowering like a thundercloud in a corner
of the room, away from the heat of the coals.
The unofficial visit allowed Ide Tadaji to deliver bad news privately. Miya Satoshi, the
Imperial Herald and daimyō of the Miya family of heralds, would hear the news and pass it along
to the Emperor, away from the eyes and ears of the court, so that the Chrysanthemum Throne could
have time to formulate a response, rather than having it dropped in its lap during open court. It was
a courtesy, albeit an expected one, and despite its unofficial nature it was as clothed in ritual and
tradition as any other function of government.
Tradition which, by making Tadaji wait, Miya Satoshi was violating. The Herald was
occasionally a brash man—a trait which did not serve a diplomat well, in Tadaji’s opinion. The
slight insult of the wait was, he was sure, intended to remind the Unicorn Clan where it stood in the
overall scheme of things.
That standing would not be improved by the news. Perhaps it would earn the Unicorn some
form of Imperial censure, or worse. Tadaji shook his head, dismissing the thought. There was no
point in ruminating upon his fears. What is done is done.
The reception room was largely featureless. Tadaji chose to stand near the brazier in order
to dry off a bit, but had not counted on being made to stand for so long. His foot had already been
protesting, but now his legs had begun to ache, as much from the long walk and the damp as from
the standing. The only places to sit were prepared at a shogi board, which was placed prominently
in the center of the room.
The rectangular board, with its carved squares, was set for play, the two groups of pieces
arrayed at each player’s end of the board, facing the opponent. A platform for captured pieces was
set to the right of each player’s seat. It was a beautiful set, finely crafted from lacquered wood.
“Do you play, Kamoko-san?”

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 The silence that had filled the room was broken, but if Kamoko was surprised, she did not
show it. The response came instantly: “I do not.”
Tadaji nodded, regarding the board. “I do not care for the game, myself. I prefer go, in its
simplistic purity—black stones and white stones, offering a clarity that shogi does not possess.”
The pieces in shogi had no identifying color, their allegiance determined only by the
direction they faced—toward their opponent. When a player captured an opposing piece, it was
removed from the board, but could be brought back into play, now used by that player among their
own original pieces. Each piece had its own unique set of moves, as well—moves which changed
and grew more complicated if the piece could be “promoted” by moving it into the opposition’s
territory. The piece was turned over, revealing a different symbol, signifying its changed status.
Generals said that shogi reflected the truth of war. Diplomats said the game echoed the
complexity and maneuvering of the court. Both saw the game as a metaphor for the conflicts of their
chosen paths. This was largely why Tadaji preferred other games—he had enough of those conflicts
in his day-to-day life; he did not desire to seek them out in metaphor, in his leisure. He far preferred
to spend his time playing go with Shosuro Takeru. Their long games, played on one of the islands
in the Imperial Water Garden, were a great source of solace to both men.
“The game seems clear enough to me, Tadaji-sama,” said Kamoko. “But very much a game
of Rokugan. I cannot fathom a war game that features no cavalry.”
Tadaji smiled. She was right, of course. The game featured a piece called the Cassia Horse,
meant to represent a mounted samurai, but no cavalry in any sense that the Unicorn Clan would
understand. The closest equivalent in shogi was the Flying Chariot, able to move the full range of
the board forward, backward, or side to side. Along with its companion piece, the Angle Mover,
which possessed a similar range, but diagonal, it was one of the most powerful pieces on the board,
possessed of the greatest field of motion. That sounded like cavalry to Tadaji, no matter what name
they had given it.
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Tadaji-sama.” A new voice rang out in the confines of
the room. Miya Satoshi entered through a sliding screen, which unseen servants in the hallway
beyond silently slid closed behind him. The Imperial Herald was dressed in the relatively plain
clothes of a lord at home in his palace, rather than his usual courtly finery.
Tadaji bristled slightly. Compounding the insult of being made to wait, Satoshi had referred
to him as –sama, rather than the –dono more appropriate to Tadaji’s station as the Ide family daimyō.

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Satoshi was of high enough status that Tadaji would look foolish in correcting him, but Satoshi had
nevertheless afforded the Unicorn daimyō less respect than he deserved. If Satoshi has heard the
news already, through spies or some other means, these provocations may be purposeful, rather
than merely the errors of a brash man.
“I believe you have something you wish for me to pass along to the Emperor?” Satoshi drew
his robes around him and sat at one of the player’s seats at the shogi board. “Let us pass some time
while we speak. Do you play?”
Tadaji crossed the room and took the other seat, searching Satoshi’s expression, trying to get
a read on the man. Does he know?
“On occasion, Satoshi-san. Only on occasion.”
Satoshi gestured to the board in a broad sweeping move of his hand. He was obviously proud
of its beauty, and the status indicated by its presence in his home. “As an honored guest, you may
have the first move.”
Tadaji shook his damp sleeves in front of the brazier one final time, and took his seat across
from Satoshi. The first move was made long before I even arrived. All that remains now is to see
how the game plays out.

As the servants held the doors open, Utaku Kamoko fell into step at Ide Tadaji’s left—the traditional
place for a bodyguard, covering the undefended side—although Tadaji held a cane in his right hand,
making it unlikely he could draw a weapon to cover the defense of his right. Within moments, they
had left the Miya Palace and entered the streets of the Forbidden City. Thankfully, the torrential
downpour that had accompanied them on their earlier journey had abated somewhat, and they now
contended only with a light rain.
Kamoko exhaled. The rain on her face was a cool relief compared to the stale heat of the
room. Whether the heat stemmed from the design of the palace itself, or from the tension of the
meeting, she did not know. But it reminded her of one surety: she belonged on the plains. Enough
of these machinations—she would just as soon ride back to Altansarnai and her fellow Battle
Maidens, and leave this place far behind. The complexities of the capital were more foreign to her
than the doumbek or the rik of the Burning Sands.
Ide Tadaji had talked with the Imperial Herald, Miya Satoshi, for over an hour as they played
shogi. Their low voices did not carry to where she stood, however, making the conversation as much

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a mystery as the progress of a game of unnecessary complexity. She’d never given the game a
thought before, and yet now it seemed to have so much riding upon it.
It was a perfect metaphor for diplomacy in Rokugan. Rules handed down for generations,
barely understood by outsiders, yet fraught with consequences.
For Shinjo Altansarnai to refuse the marriage offer of Ikoma Anakazu of the Lion Clan was
a violation of those pointless rules. She had been asked to give up too much: her duty to her clan as
the champion; her true love and father of her three children, Iuchi Daiyu; her honor. The cost was
too high for peace with a clan that the Unicorn need not be concerned by. Ide Tadaji had been one
of the brokers of that peace, however, and now he was tasked with delivering the news of its failure
to the Chrysanthemum Throne.
If it means war, then so be it. The treacherous Lion have been a burr beneath our saddle for
far too long.
The only question was the Imperial reaction. If the Emperor sided with the Lion, the Unicorn
Clan might end up faced with more than just their long-time rival as an enemy. The Imperial Court
could strip them of their lands, their status, making them truly outcast. They’ve always treated us as
outsiders. Gaijin, they call us. This could be their opportunity to drive us out completely.
All depended on this meeting. The fate of an entire clan, hanging in the balance of a game
played by two men, trading words as they traded captured pieces on the board. Better for such things
to be decided in the field, astride a horse with scimitar in hand, rather than constrained by the
complexities of tradition and diplomacy.
As they walked, Kamoko dared not say anything to Tadaji. She was not sure she could even
trust him, much less predict how he would react.
Tadaji stopped her with a gentle, unexpected hand on her arm, and gestured to a nearby stone
bench overlooking one of the Forbidden City’s many koi ponds. “Let us take a moment, Kamoko-
san.”
They sat, watching the fish gliding just beneath the surface of the water, the golds, pinks,
reds and whites of their scales the only color on the gray day. The surface of the water was a never-
ending dance of circles, crossing over each other, combining, separating, and rebounding, rippling
outward from the drops of rain hitting the pond. Even here, everything is tangled.
She had to begin untangling it somewhere. “The Herald had someone observe the meeting.
Hidden behind a screen.”

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 Tadaji nodded. “I assumed as much. The news will travel fast.”
“And how was the news taken? Does the clan face censure?”
“Flying Chariot, Standing,” was Tadaji’s only reply. Kamoko waited for further explanation.
He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands crossed atop his cane, and watched the fish swim.
“I do not understand, Tadaji-sama.”
“Neither did I, at first.” Tadaji shook his head, as if to clear it, and turned to face her with
kind eyes. “It is part of that game that you don’t play. There are a number of traditional strategies
for winning the game—and many of them rely upon the piece known as the Flying Chariot, taking
advantage of its wide range of movement.
“Satoshi, however, kept his chariots back, and began to move his more valuable pieces to
the spaces behind them.”
“Using them as bodyguards,” Kamoko offered, trying on the terminology of the game.
“Not exactly. The strategy was one known as Flying Chariot, Standing—which uses the
chariots as a bulwark, as you said, but the primary purpose is to use the opponent’s knowledge of
the strengths of the chariot against him. To make them worry about why you are not deploying the
chariots to their strengths—and this is designed to draw an opponent in: to make your opponent
defeat himself, in essence.”
“I see...” she lied, although Tadaji probably saw through her lie far more easily than the
hidden observer had seen the meeting through the screen.
Tadaji waved his hand, as if dispelling the lie like shooing away a fly. “It is more complex
than that, of course, but that is the heart of it. It made me realize something. I saw that Satoshi
viewed any potential clash between Lion and Unicorn as something in the best interests of the
Chrysanthemum Throne.”
Kamoko’s eyebrows shot up. “He wants us to go to war?”
“Not precisely. It is likely that he doubts it will come to that, and if it does, he and the
Emperor stand ready to censure one or both sides. Yet, infighting between the clans has long been
the aim of the Imperials, especially the Otomo, although the Miya family was once known as ‘the
bridge between clans.’ War would keep us and the Lion occupied with each other, with neither able
to grow strong enough to be an unbalancing element. The outsider gaijin with their unparalleled
cavalry,” Tadaji struck Kamoko’s armor with a light tap, “making sure the Right Hand of the
Emperor, the Lion, does not become too strong—and the reverse as well. And if the Lion begin to

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wear themselves out against us in the northwest, perhaps they will grow more cautious against the
Crane Clan in the east.”
As if the Lion could offer any obstruction to the Unicorn at all—
“The Emperor and the court sit behind their bulwark, while we defeat ourselves.”
Kamoko’s eyes widened. She nodded. “Flying Chariot, Standing.”
No matter the intentions of the Throne, however, it freed the Unicorn to demonstrate their
strength against the Lion, once and for all, without Imperial interference. The challenge was as
achievable as it was long overdue.
After a moment’s silence, broken only by the occasional splash of koi breaking the surface
of the pond, Tadaji sighed. “I found myself wondering how much of that was Miya Satoshi’s
opinion, and how much was Otomo Sorai’s or the Emperor’s—or if, in the end, there’s any real
difference at all. I fear for what lies ahead, Kamoko-san.” He leaned heavily upon his cane as he
stood, taking a moment to give one last look at the pond before leaving. Kamoko followed close
behind him, then stopped.
Kamoko remembered how the Imperial Herald had stood suddenly, scowling like he had
swallowed a frog, and ended the meeting so abruptly that it did not border upon rudeness, but rode
directly over it like a cavalry charge through infantry.
Kamoko cleared her throat. “Tadaji-sama—if Satoshi-sama is hoping for the Unicorn and
the Lion to exhaust ourselves, why was he so displeased by the news?”
Tadaji smiled. “Oh, he wasn’t displeased by the news. He was angry because once I
identified his shogi strategy, I beat him. Rather quickly, in fact.”
Kamoko blinked.
“I told you that I do not care for the game, Kamoko-san, not that I’m not good at it.”

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Kakita Yoshi paused his ambling stroll through the gardens of the Crane Clan embassy. A Kirishima
azalea caught his attention, its blossoms bright crimson under the morning sun. It was, of course,
perfectly trimmed: almost, but not quite, spherical, the slight asymmetry itself carefully crafted.
Perfect imperfection, deliberately fashioned to complement the azalea’s place in the garden.
Yoshi smiled his appreciation at the unseen gardener. How satisfying it must be, he thought,
to be able to design the very flaws that afflicted your subjects. People, unfortunately, came with
their flaws already included. The best he could do was learn those flaws, and then exploit them.
Resentment, jealousy, ambition, lust... every delegate to the Imperial Court had some imperfection,
some failure of character that could be leveraged. The trick—and the trouble—was determining how
to work with what you were given. It would be so much easier if, like the gardener, Yoshi could
simply decide that this courtier pined for a particular woman or that courtier craved opium. He could
then arrange and shape the Imperial Court like this azalea, getting the precise outcome he desired
every time.
Yes, the gardener had it so much easier.
Yoshi looked at a purple and yellow shion blossom. It represented remembrance... I won’t
forget. He still could not forget the last time he was here.

Yoshi walked along the winding path, toward the Crane Clan embassy proper, but he stopped when
someone appeared in the path before him, blocking his way. Yoshi began to frown his disapproval,
to prepare a sharp rebuke for whoever hadn’t immediately made way for him, but he stopped as he

185
recognized the grey kimono embroidered with cranes in white. It was Kakita Toshimoko, who was
known as the Grey Crane-his own brother.
“Here you are, Yoshi-san,” Toshimoko said, bowing. “I heard that you had found some time
away from your duties as Imperial Chancellor.”
Yoshi returned the bow. “Greetings, Brother. I see that, likewise, you have found yourself a
chance to parade about the gardens.”
“It is beautiful under the bright gaze of Lady Sun, is it not?” Grinning conspiratorially,
Toshimoko added, “But it is even more beautiful in the softer of light of Lord Moon, with a fair
woman by your side, eh?”
Yoshi suppressed a sigh. Toshimoko may be the revered sensei of the Kakita Dueling
Academy, mentor and closest advisor to Doji Hotaru and former mentor to the Emperor himself.
But he was also ungraceful, sometimes even crude. Offering an indulgent smile, Yoshi replied, “If
you say so, Brother.”
“I do!” Toshimoko said, but his grin faded. “Still, you almost certainly have pressing
business that demands your attention—you’re not here to appreciate the foliage. What really brings
you here?”
“I have not met with Hotaru-ue since her arrival in Otosan Uchi,” Yoshi said. “I wish to offer
my condolences to her regarding Lord Satsume prior to the funeral.”
The remainder of Toshimoko’s grin vanished. “Really? Condolences... or congratulations?”
Yoshi started to open and raise his fan, the instinct of a practiced courtier concealing his
shock at such an outrageous statement. instead, he glared at Toshimoko. “I did not realize that
mastery of the sword entailed such a degradation of one’s other qualities—such as simple decency
and propriety.”
“Bah. Spare me your courtly façade of indignity, Brother.” He gestured at the shion. “That
flower asks us to remember. Teinko threw herself off the cliffs at Kyūden Doji because of Satsume.
Hotaru and I both well remember. So should you.”
“Regardless of your feelings, that is an unworthy way to speak of the dead, Brother.”
“Again, bah. The shion only cares that Satsume is remembered, not how. If it is less than
fondly, then that is his burden to take into the next life, for he is the one that chose to bear it.”
Yoshi looked back at the shion blossom. I won’t forget. Yoshi wouldn’t, but not for the
unworthy reasons Toshimoko offered. He wouldn’t forget Satsume because he had been a strong

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leader... and, yes, a demanding one. But demanding excellence from your vassals was how you
made them strong, too. Nor would he forget their sister, who had thrown her life away in the
despairing belief that she could never live up to Satsume’s expectations, rather than just trying
harder to fulfill them, as was her duty.
People, unfortunately, came with their flaws already included. Teinko’s fatal fragility had
been hers. Hotaru and Toshimoko had decided Satsume was the villain of the piece, though. It was
a nostalgically revisionist view, a willful blindness brought on by their love for Teinko. For each, it
was their own weakness... their own flaw.
He looked back at Toshimoko. “Satsume was a great man,” he said. “He represented and
served our family, our clan, and our Empire with honor. You may choose to remember him
otherwise, but I will not let that be forgotten.” He considered adding, He is also the one now likely
to be in Yomi, the Realm of Sacred Ancestors, while Teinko lingers in Meido, waiting to be judged...
But he didn't. Another of Toshimoko’s flaws was passion. It made him easy to provoke—something
Yoshi knew only too well. As children, he had once goaded Toshimoko too far over... something.
He couldn’t even recall the reason now. Toshimoko had knocked Yoshi into a koi pond and held
him there, thrashing futilely, almost drowning him. The furtive, wet sounds and movements of koi
made Yoshi shudder and draw away even to this day.
Toshimoko simply glared back at Yoshi. “I do not deny Satsume’s service, nor his
contributions, Brother. Just keep in mind, when you see Hotaru, that her feelings about him, like
mine, are... strong.”
“Of course.”

A nearby stand of cherry trees swayed greenly in the sunlight, all traces of their petals gone. They
had bloomed weeks ago: Before Akodo Arasou had been slain. Before the dissolution of a vital
Unicorn-Lion marriage. Before the heir to the Crane, Doji Kuwanan, had come under attack in the
Osari Plains. Before the kidnapping of Yasuki Taka and the hostage-taking of Kakita Asami.
Kakita Yuri awaited him near the gazebo, a perfect mask of cordiality betraying no hint of
concern for his daughter’s wellbeing. The man bowed deeply. “Greetings, Kakita-ue.”
“Greetings, Yuri-san. You say you have important matters you needed to discuss.” And away
from the Imperial Court, no less.

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 “Yes, your lordship. The Unicorn continue gathering support for their petition: a new law, I
believe, declaring Toshi Ranbo an Imperial holding.”
“They do. It would appear that Bayushi Shoju has now endorsed their efforts as well. That
leaves only the Lion in opposition.” Yoshi sniffed. “Hardly surprising. If the Emperor approves this
petition, they Stand to lose the most.”
“My lord, it would be most desirable to have the Unicorn petition be the first order of the
business for the court when it reconvenes. As the Imperial Chancellor, you oversee the court’s
agenda, so you can ensure this happens.”
Ordinarily, he would only entertain such a request in return for something... useful. That the
request came from his own clan, and one his direct vassals, made little difference. As chancellor, he
served only the Emperor.
Moreover, this man had done no more than what was expected of him in sending his daughter
to Lion lands to negotiate. Hostage taking was hardly unusual, especially in light of the losses the
Lion had suffered at Toshi Ranbo. And yet...
Ikoma Ujiaki of the Lion had all but demanded to be granted the first petitioner’s slot. And
certainly, the Lion Clan delegation had offered nothing useful to the chancellor, assuming instead
that the slot was theirs by right.
“I see no reason,” Yoshi said, “why the Unicorn petition cannot be the first item on the
agenda. I shall make the necessary arrangements.”
Kakita Yuri’s face remained expressionless, but he bowed. “Thank you. I shall inform the
rest of the Crane delegation.”
Yuri nodded, bowed again, and started back toward the embassy.
The other man paused.
“We shall ensure that no harm comes to Lady Asami or her retinue.”
“Thank you, my lord." At that, he bowed once more, even more deeply, and excused himself.
Yoshi gave the shion blossom a final look, then carried on, continuing his stroll through the
gardens.

The Imperial audience chamber of Rokugan was the epicenter of the Empire's politics a vast, soaring
space at the heart of the palace in the Forbidden City. A place of mirror-polished stone and dark
wood, its ponderous expanse accommodated the legions of courtiers, bureaucrats, and ministers who

188
were the ceaseless machinery of Rokugani governance. Everything there was impeccably tailored,
precisely arranged, and entirely choreographed. it was as far and different a place from the grime,
blood, and confusion of a battlefield as one could possibly imagine.
But to Kakita Yoshi, there really was no difference. The Imperial Court was very much a
battlefield, one where the consequences were often as dire as were the slash and thrust of katana and
yari. And not just a battlefield, at that, but the battlefield, the one that mattered the most. Wars were
won or lost there, before a single samurai even donned their armor. To underscore the point, he
carried a tessen, a war fan whose bamboo ribs were cunningly lacquered and shaped to nearly the
strength and sharpness of a katana blade. It was very much a weapon, something prohibited in the
court. But he was the Imperial Chancellor, and the court was his to govern. Only the Emperor or the
Emerald Champion might gainsay him the concerns of anyone else were irrelevant.
Holding his fan prominently, Yoshi mounted the great dais, a massive edifice of polished
stone and wood that loomed over the chamber. Upon each successively higher level of the dais sat
correspondingly higher-ranking court officials, culminating with the Emperor himself at the
pinnacle, upon the massive Chrysanthemum Throne. Pillars to either side bore inscriptions of
wisdom: “All is right with the world” on the right and “Revere heaven, love people” on the left.
Yoshi reached his own place on the level immediately below the throne, and then turned and faced
the court.
Hundreds of courtiers knelt, blocks of color representing the Great Clans of Rokugan, the
Imperial families, and several of the Minor Clans. They all waited for him to return their collective
bow. First, though, he cast a critical. eye over the proceedings. Failure in even the most minute detail
would bring shame to the perpetrator, and then apology, dismissal to some distant and obscure post,
or even seppuku. But everything was as it should be, a fact that left Yoshi both satisfied and slightly
disappointed.
He let the moment linger a bit longer, then bowed to acknowledge the court’s obeisance. As
one, the assembly straightened. The only exception was Bayushi Kachiko, the imperial Advisor,
who knelt on the same level of the great dais as Yoshi, to the Emperor's left, whereas his own place
was to the right. Of equal status, she hadn’t bowed and simply acknowledged Yoshi with a nod. He
returned it, noting that she had only just taken her place before him. Normally, she arrived in court
well before he did—probably to oversee some petty scheme or other.

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 He looked away. A most unpleasant woman, as vile and dangerous as her Clan’s namesake
scorpion. Like everyone else, she had flaws, of course... but Yoshi wasn’t sure what they were.
Kachiko was wrapped in too many veils of obfuscation and secrecy. Eventually, though, he would
tear them away, and then—
The great doors swung open and Yoshi pushed Kachiko from his mind. Like every person
present in the court, he prostrated himself, forehead touching the floor.
The steady tread of kōgake, armored shoes, presaged the entrance of a squad of the Seppun
Honor Guard, Behind followed a procession of retainers and more Miharu, the Subservient retinue
of a single man: Hantei the Thirty-Eighth, the Emperor of Rokugan.
With utter precision, the Miharu and myriad functionaries separated and moved to their
places. The Emperor, followed by the Imperial Herald and other officials, ascended the great dais.
When the Emperor reached his place at the top, he turned, facing the court and offering a simple
bow before taking his place on the throne.
Moving as one, the court rose, but remained kneeling. A pause, then Yoshi stood.
“Loyal samurai of Rokugan,” he said, “it is my honor and privilege to declare this session
of the Imperial Court, on this tenth day of the month of Akodo, in the year 1123 by the Calendar of
lsawa, to be convened.” As he spoke, his voice carried throughout the chamber, carried to every
corner by the cunning design of the place. “May the Ten Thousand Fortunes guide your thoughts,
words, and deeds as you engage in the momentous business of the Empire on this day.”
Yoshi paused and cast one more glance across the court. The ink brushes of the scribes were
poised, ready to record the proceedings in minute detail. At the back of the chamber, the various
delegations were lined up, each ready to approach the great dais in turn. At their head, Yoshi saw
Ide Tadaji of the Unicorn. The Lion had lobbied furiously to take the first petition slot, likely to pre-
empt the Unicorn. Yoshi had, unfortunately, only been able to offer them the third, following a
Dragon delegation seeking to petition the court about their troubles with the heretical Perfect Land
Sect. The glare of the Lion delegation head, Ikoma Ujiaki, was on him like a beam of hot sunlight.
Yoshi ignored it.
All was ready. Yoshi raised his fan to signal that the first delegation should approach... but
stopped at movement behind him.
The Emperor stood, apparently to speak.

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 Yoshi immediately lowered his fan. This was... unexpected. Yet, it was the Emperor’s
prerogative to do whatever he wished, so, he simply turned to hear what the Son of Heaven would
say.
“Samurai of Rokugan,” the Emperor said, “prior to the commencement of this court’s work,
I will address a grave matter. The Empire recently suffered a grievous loss with the death of Doji
Satsume, the Emerald Champion. I wish to commemorate Satsume-san and to recognize, with
gratitude, his loyalty and tireless efforts for the betterment of the Empire.”
Silence reigned, for a moment, before the Emperor continued.
“Lord Satsume’s death has, of course, left the position of Emerald Champion vacant. I have
instructed the Imperial Herald to arrange for the Test of the Emerald Champion to be held, at a time
and place yet to be determined, in order that the Celestial Heavens, in their wisdom, may ordain a
new incumbent for this revered office.”
Another pause. Yoshi glanced back at the court, ensuring the delegations remained ready to
approach when the Emperor finished speaking.
“Finally,” the Emperor said, "I am issuing an edict. The ascension of a new Emerald
Champion, by means of the customary tournament, is an ancient tradition and one that contributes
directly to the stability of the Empire. To further ensure that stability, I am decreeing that, until such
time as a new Emerald Champion has assumed the august position of Chief Magistrate of Rokugan,
no existing Imperial laws will be amended or repealed, and no new Imperial laws will be proposed
or enacted. With that decree in place, the business of this court may now commence.”
A decree...? No new laws, no laws amended...?
Why? Why had the Emperor done this? And why hadn’t he been informed? He was the
chancellor. Such a proclamation should not be a surprise to him.
Were there other surprises lurking in the court...?
Instinct almost caused Yoshi to raise his fan, concealing his shock, as dozens of lesser
courtiers did throughout the chamber. But he didn't have that luxury. Fortunately, a flawless façade,
cultivated over years in court, allowed him to maintain a nearly perfect expression of bland
neutrality.
Yoshi looked to the far end of the chamber. The Emperor’s decree had rendered the
Unicorn's petition suddenly pointless. As Ide Tadaji stepped aside, allowing the Dragon to take his

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place, Yoshi sensed his surprise and disappointment. He exchanged a brief glance with Kakita Yuri,
standing with the Crane, and could feel his shocked discomfiture as well.
Yoshi carefully maintained his mask as the Dragon approached the great dais. The Lion
moved eagerly into place behind them, their simmering resentment replaced by enthusiastic
satisfaction.
Why had the Emperor done this?
Movement to his left snagged Yoshi’s attention. Bayushi Kachiko had begun fanning herself.
Her fan depicted a castle landscape-and a young maiden.
Yoshi’s grip tightened on his own fan.
Kachiko had been uncharacteristically late arriving in court. Where, exactly, had she been?
With the Emperor?
For her part, Kachiko’s interest seemed to lie only with the approaching Dragon. She did,
however, favor Yoshi with a brief look, a fleeting glimpse that told him nothing...
And everything.
His knuckles tightened again, whitening.
Like everyone else, she had flaws... but Yoshi wasn’t sure what they were. She was wrapped
in too many veils of obfuscation and secrecy.
Yoshi turned away from Kachiko. The shion flowers in the gardens of the Crane still held
their promise.
I will not forget.

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Yojiro applied his blade to the soft, pulpy surface of the wood. A curled shaving, and then another,
like tongues of fire, rose and fell onto a furoshiki he had placed on the floor to catch them. Yojiro
tapped his knife on the bench to let the wood slivers fall. The staccato mirrored the rain’s rhythm.
Tap tap. Tap. Tap tap tap.
A gardener dressed in simple brown ducked out from behind a gate, a paper parasol draped
over his shoulder.
An improbable figure: the gardener stared at him just a little too long before beginning to
collect fallen leaves from the gravel pathway with a set of brass tongs. Yojiro continued to carve,
his knife occasionally knocking the slivers from his work.
Tap tap tap.
Giggles issued from inside the embassy as a group of ladies approached a second story
window. Lady Kachiko’s languorous voice rose above the other women’s. The shutter opened, and
the courtiers sighed at the sight.
“Ah, the soft summer storm,” Kachiko called out the window. “Shall we enjoy the view
while we play our game?”
“Yes, hanafuda while we watch the flowers. How poignant,” another woman replied. Yojiro
recognized the voice as Shosuro Hatsuko, Kachiko’s favorite geisha spy.
As their game commenced, the lacquered wooden cards fell upon a table with methodical
clacks, also mirroring the rain’s beat.
Click click. Click. Click click.
Yojiro tapped his knife again.

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 Tap tap.
The connection was established. Yojiro listened for the clicks of the hanafuda cards above,
translating them into the words he had been ordered to wait for.
Click. Click click click.
The sounds issued from the window, nearly muffled by the shower, but Yojiro heard every
word clearly.
Magistrate. Power. Tournament.
Yojiro transposed the coded words in his mind, connecting them to their intended meaning.
Kachiko was referring to his position as an Emerald Magistrate, an honor that gave him control over
planning the Emerald Championship tournament. Bayushi Shoju’s brother Aramoro, the Scorpion
contender, was to fight in the final match in a few days’ time.
He answered, tapping his knife on the wood before him, knocking the shavings to the floor.
Yes. My lady.
“You know, ladies,” Kachiko said out loud, her words nothing more than a smoke screen for
the true conversation. “I’m afraid that my recent visit to the Crane courtiers was disappointing.”
The gardener approached. His work had brought him directly beneath Kachiko’s window to
scoop leaves from a koi pond with a long bamboo net. The gardener would hear nothing.
“Kakita Yuri completely lacks style,” Kachiko continued. “Who knew a fine kimono could
be ruined when its wearer’s pride crumples into stubbornness?”
“Yes, something about the twist of a pig-headed expression throws off the balance of the
patterns,” Hatsuko answered. “Someone really ought to tell Yuri-san that the clothes do not make
the man. The man makes the clothes.”
The hanafuda cards continued to fall.
Click. Click click. Click click.
Tournament. Scorpion. Win.
Yojiro paused, his reply at the tips of his fingers. A twinge in his stomach stopped him short.
Kachiko was asking him to sabotage the tournament, to use his crafting to ensure Aramoro became
Emerald Champion. He frowned.
He could picture Kachiko’s face above. Her full, crimson lips tilted into her knowing yet
fathomless smile, savoring the delight of the plot.
Her message continued.

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 You. Clever. You. Win.
He could imagine her eyes, dark and mysterious, a tinge of flirtation.
So often he saw those eyes beside the Emperor. There, sitting in his regal majesty, the
Hantei’s gentle eyes extended toward heaven. The trusting, guileless wisdom with which he spoke.
His strong hand resting upon the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Such a sabotage would be treason, Yojiro reminded himself. Worse even. A personal insult
to the Emperor, blasphemy under the rule of Heaven.
Yet, Yojiro could not fully banish from his mind Kachiko’s face, her ambitious gaze blazing
with immutable loyalty to the Scorpion, the same fealty with which he had already devised a way
to sabotage the tournament the moment she had asked.
He sighed. Above all else, he was a servant to his clan. Above his honor. Above his soul.
He plied his knife.
I serve. Scorpion.
“It is a relief that the fighting between the Lion and the Crane must cease during the duration
of the Emerald Champion tournament,” Kachiko said, her sincerity seemingly unfeigned. “It should
bring a few days of peace, more than we could have hoped for.”
Craft well, Yojiro. Craft wise.
“A peace well earned,” replied Hatsuko. “War is such an ugly thing.”
I serve. My lady.
The gardener shot a suspicious glance at Yojiro, but he ignored it.
I wait. Good fortune.
Yojiro carefully wrapped his pile of wood shavings in his furoshiki and tucked it into his
sleeve. He met the eyes of the gardener again before stepping out into the rain to hand him his
carving.
A small wooden Crane for a Crane spy.
Mortified, the gardener stood paralyzed at being discovered, so Yojiro tucked it into the
man’s obi before walking away. He had another project to work on.

Bayushi Yojiro’s high collar felt too tight around his throat. Its upward sweeping points pricked the
sides of his face, caging him within his turmoil.
Honor. Dishonor. Am I a traitor? Whom would I be a traitor to?

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 “Yoji-kun. What’s troubling you?”
Yojiro had forgotten he was walking with his sister. “It’s nothing, Mii-chan.”
Otomo Mikuru cast him a suspicious glance, over-exaggerated in a mocking style of her
usually impeccable acting skills. “Your anxiety is plain on your face. That stiff collar hides nothing
from me, brother.”
Yojiro hesitated. His sister had always been more stalwart than him in her loyalty. Trained
from a young age as an exceptional actress, she volunteered at only ten years of age to take part in
a deceptive plot involving an Otomo representative visiting Kyūden Bayushi. She had done well.
Now that she was married into the Otomo household, her ploys continued hourly, and she loved
every minute.
“Even if I hide nothing from you, Mii-chan, it does not mean I can just say what comes to
mind. We are no longer secret-sharing children.”
“So you have a secret, then?” Her smile stretched far across her cheeks. She paused on the
wooden planked path to stare at the tournament grounds. The path led to an array of brightly painted
risers clothed in banners hued and marked for the seven clans. They enclosed a spacious marble
demonstration floor in an octagon, the Emperor’s dais decorated with emerald silk and
chrysanthemums making up the eighth side.
“Is your secret about the upcoming tournament?” Mikuru asked.
Yojiro nodded.
“Is it about the real reason why the tournament is being held at the capital city? Bayushi
Goshiu and I have been arguing about gossip regarding the Emperor’s displeasure with the state of
the Palace of the Emerald Champion. I heard Doji Satsume left the castle quite in disarray.”
“There’s no scandal,” Yojiro sighed, weary of quelling the rumors. “Our blessed Emperor is
merely getting too aged to travel. Honestly, Mii-chan. Have you ever heard of Champion Satsume
and the word disarray in the same sentence before that rumor?”
Mikuru laughed out loud, unbecoming of a court lady. “I suppose you’re right. But for
having the reputation as ‘the only honest Scorpion,’ you are being very tight-lipped. What is your
secret really, Yoji-kun?”
Yojiro gazed into her fresh face, barely seeing the tinge of concern in the crook of her ever-
poised mouth.
Whom am I willing to betray?

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 He shook his head. “I’m sorry.” He drew a long, silk parcel from his sleeve and offered it to
her. “A present. I made this for you.”
She unraveled the silk to reveal a kanzashi which sparkled blindingly in the sunlight. She
touched the delicate, mirrored beads that fell in an arcing spray from the end. One of the beads lay
fixed in place, a tiny corner tangled in the silk threading while the others dangled free, Yojiro’s skill
hidden in the seeming flaw.
“Am I to wear this at this tournament, Yojiro?”
He nodded, careful to hide an uncontrollable twitch in his frown from his sister behind his
high collar.
“You and your husband’s family have seats on the Emperor’s dais. You are to help Aramoro
win by blinding his opponent with this. You should be able to master the mirror in only a few
minutes.”
She touched her brother’s sleeve. “And your worry? What ails your heart in this endeavor?”
“Should the mirror’s reflection be contested, you must offer to commit seppuku for the
dishonor of the accident.”
Mikuru smiled, undisturbed by the command. “Are you worried it will come to that? That I
will have to die?”
Yojiro shook his head, sweeping the prospect of death aside. “No, Mii-chan. What I worry
about is more... subtle. And yet all the more tormenting. Betraying the Emperor’s trust is not a light
thing to consider.”
“You are right. It is not.” Mikuru started walking, stopping only when she stood right before
the Emperor’s dais. She gently slashed the kanzashi into the intricate loops of hair coiled upon her
head and bowed as though preparing for an audience. As she lifted her head, the same fire burned
in her eyes that Yojiro had often seen in Kachiko’s. The loyalty beyond death. The ambition for
power. Kachiko’s presence had intimidated him into burning with that fire, her fervor consuming
him. Yet seeing it reflected in his own sister’s eyes twisted his stomach.
“What does the Emperor trust you to do?”
Yojiro thought a moment. “As Emerald Magistrate, I must fulfill my duties to the best of my
ability and serve Rokugan with dignity and equanimity.”

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 Mikuru turned to look at the Scorpion banner that hung above one of the stands. “The
Emperor trusts Lord Shoju to do that too, Yojiro.” She turned back to him. “And Lord Shoju trusts
me to do the same, even at the cost of my own life.”
Mikuru bowed to her brother, flashing the setting sun right into his eyes with the mirrored
beads on her new hair ornament. She smiled, amused with her new skill, and departed.
Yojiro blinked the spots in his vision away, remembering his cunning, fathomless
Champion. Shoju’s masked face betrayed nothing, yet his eyes pierced through a man to his very
soul, beyond his lusts and weaknesses into his core. Those eyes were always shrewd, savage
perhaps, yet clear with no fire of ambition burning in them like those of Kachiko.
Suddenly, Yojiro could see Kachiko’s ambition stained all over this Emerald Championship
plot. She and Aramoro would risk dishonor for the possibility of power in the name of their clan.
However, Shoju would not risk the Emperor’s trust on such a blatant scheme as sabotaging the
tournament, even for the power the Emerald Championship afforded.
Yojiro took a lingering look at the Emperor’s dais. Shoju’s loyalty to the Empire could be
trusted, his motives ever for the sake of Rokugan. There was honor in that.
Your sentiments are right, Mii-chan, he thought. I must be the man that Lord Shoju can trust
to protect Rokugan, even at the cost of my own clan. If I must tip the scales in Aramoro’s favor, so
too shall I tip the scales for his opponent, until they are balanced once more.

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Bayushi Aramoro grasped the hilt of his katana and drew it out in one swift motion. He drove the
blade forward with all his power, and the top section of the bamboo pole standing in front of him
went flying off into the garden. Aramoro walked over to the pole to examine it, running his fingers
over the cut surface. It was well done, but not perfect-and he needed perfection, or its equivalent. In
a week’s time, the Test of the Emerald Champion would be held, and Aramoro had to win it. His
lord was counting on him. His clan was counting on him.
Kachiko was counting on him.
The gravel behind him crunched slightly, and Aramoro turned around to glare at the servant
kneeling on the path. “I said I was not to be disturbed.”
“My lord, it is Magistrate Bayushi Yojiro. He wishes to see you.”
Aramoro’s irritation vanished. “One should not keep an Emerald Magistrate waiting,” he
said. “Bring him here at once.” He kept the excitement out of his voice. Yojiro’s devotion to honor
marked him a fool, but he was an obedient fool—his presence here meant he had found a way to
carry out Kachiko’s orders.
A few minutes later, Yojiro was ushered into the garden. He did not wear the traditional
mask of a Scorpion samurai, preferring instead to wear robes with high collars that shadowed the
lower part of his face. Aramoro could see the other man’s face clearly, and that face showed nothing
but proper samurai reserve. It was a very good mask.
Yojiro did not speak, but simply bowed in greeting. Aramoro returned the bow, and waited
silently until he heard the servant leave the garden. "You have something for me."

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 “Yes, my lord.” Yojiro slipped his hand into one of his sleeves and produced a woman’s
hairpin. It was an elaborate confection of small paper flowers that dangled around a large central
bead set with irregular shards of mirror. “This is your victory.”
“What?” Aramoro said. “This is—”
A sudden flash of sunlight filled his eyes, blinding him. He held up an arm in reflex while
blinking furiously. When he looked back, Yojiro was holding up the mirrored bead.
“Some time ago, we inserted an agent into the Otomo family by marrying her to an Otomo
courtier. I have given her a hairpin just like this one, which she will wear when attending the final
duel of the tournament. I know where the members of the Otomo family will be seated, and I will
arrange for the final duel to be held at a time to give her the best possible sun angle to work with.
She will blind your opponent, and you will strike.”
“lngenious,” Aramoro said. “But what if someone else notices the flash?”
“It is unlikely,” Yojiro said. He gave a shrug that Aramoro thought was a little too casual,
but he couldn’t be certain. “If it comes to official notice, she will be horrified that her fidgeting
disrupted the duel and will tearfully beg to commit seppuku, so as to remove any dishonor from the
Otomo family.”
“Yes, that will do,” Aramoro said. “You have brought me Amaterasu’s own favor. Well
done.”
Kachiko—now, I will be even closer by your side.

The sun was near the horizon and shadows were long on the ground as Akodo Toturi walked to his
tent. He took a deep breath to clear his mind. One more duel, one more victory, and the first stage
of his plan would be complete.
He followed the path around a corner and almost ran into another samurai standing in his
way. As the two sorted themselves out, Toturi noticed first the red and black colors of the Scorpion
and then the face of the man who wore them: Bayushi Yojiro.
He tensed. In his study of the Emerald Champion and the magistrates who served him, Toturi
had come across frequent mentions of Yojiro, “the Honest Scorpion.” he man had been in Imperial
service for years, and at every moment he had acted as an honorable samurai whose only goal was
to faithfully serve the Emperor. This meant either that Yojiro was one of the rare honorable

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Scorpions or that he was better than most at concealing his dishonor. It was an exquisitely dangerous
ambiguity.
“My apologies, Akodo-sama,” Yojiro said as he bowed. “l should not have allowed myself
to become so distracted.”
“We will not speak of it,” Toturi said. "Is there a problem? I know the Emerald Magistrates
have been very busy these past few days.”
“Not at all,” Yojiro said. “I was simply taking a moment to appreciate the sunset. ‘These
things show us the bright flame of the world’s glory.’”
Toturi recognized the quote from the classic play at once, and his eyes narrowed a bit as he
stared at the Scorpion. “‘And the darkness that covers all when the pyre’s flame dies,’” he recited
back.
Yojiro smiled warmly. “Indeed, indeed,” he said. “And now , I must depart; as you note, I
have many duties during the tournament.” He bowed deeply and left.

A heart filled with Bushido could not be troubled. So Toturi had been taught from childhood, and
this morning as he sat in meditation, he sought the calm that came from the certain knowledge of
honorable behavior. But disturbance lapped at him, like faint ripples on a deep, still pond.
His clanmates thought to distance him from the rest of the clan by bestowing one of the
highest honors in the land upon him. He would be forced to spend most of his time away from Shiro
Akodo and the rest of the generals. All the while, Matsu Tsuko roared for war, and if she could
somehow wrest the clan championship from him—Doji Satsume had been forced to defend his
championship in his later years—it could come to that.
At the same time, his new wife, Kaede, was adjusting slowly to married life. Since the
wedding, she still kept to her own quarters, maintaining frequent contact with her friends in the
Imperial Capital.
And what was Bayushi Yojiro up to? The play he had quoted from ended in a duel and a
death: two former friends had faced off against each other, and when the setting sun forced one of
them to blink, the other seized the moment to strike.
The encounter had been innocent enough, when seen in isolation. But this morning, Toturi
had received word of whom his opponent in the final duel was to be: Bayushi Aramoro. The Emerald
Championship was a great prize. Great enough to tempt an honest Scorpion? But what purpose did

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quoting an old play accomplish? No one needed to be reminded that most duels end in death, and
the duels here were specifically designed to be nonfatal. What was Yojiro’s point? Or was it merely
coincidence?
He shook his head in irritation and stood up.
He had finished dressing and was sliding his swords into his obi when a guard announced
that Ikoma Ujiaki wished to see him. Toturi agreed, and he was shown in.
“Akodo-ue,” Ujiaki said, bowing, his fearsome hair bobbing up and down, not unlike a lion’s
mane. “I hope to resolve this matter quickly. The Lion and Unicorn delegations have had several...
encounters so far today.”
Ujiaki didn’t specify what the ‘encounters’ were about, which meant Toturi knew exactly
what they had concerned. Lady Shinjo Altansarnai’s breaking of her betrothal with Ikoma Anakazu
was still sending shock waves through the Lion Clan that any samurai could behave with such
disregard for clan and honor was incredible. It had created a major loss of face for the Ikoma family,
and Toturi was not surprised that some Lion samurai had found opportunities to express their
displeasure with the Unicorn Clan.
“I am sure they were merely drunk,” Toturi said. “I will leave to your discretion how to deal
with the samurai of your family. The Unicorn will have to look after themselves.”
“Indeed. Not only that, my lord, but Gunsō Matsu Mitsuko has led a raiding party against
Hisu Mori Mura in Unicorn Lands.”
“What? Who dared authorize the—”
He answered his own question. Matsu Tsuko. Of course. Toturi frowned. War seemed to
inch closer to inevitability every day. “We shall deal with this later.”
“As you wish, Akodo-ue. Lastly, Miya Satoshi-dono has sent word that the duel will take
place in two hours' time.”
Toturi nodded grimly. “I am ready whenever the Emperor calls.”
“As befits a samurai.” Ujiaki hesitated. “Akodo-ue, if I may. We could have easily recovered
the Osari Plains had Doji Satsume not used his power as Emerald Champion to defend his clan's
claim of ownership. By ensuring that the next Emerald Champion is an honorable samurai, we will
no longer be bothered by such issues.”

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 Ikoma Uliaki wasn’t wrong, but he was nevertheless short-sighted. The Emerald
Championship wasn’t about a single clan—it was about all of them. Bayushi Aramoro would only
ever be a pawn of the Scorpion, enacting Shoju and Kachiko’s will.
“The advantages of a Lion Emerald Champion are obvious,” Ujiaki continued. “We should
be so honored to have you win the tournament.”
“Indeed,” Toturi replied.
“By your leave,” Ujiaki said, and he bowed before leaving the tent.
There are those Lion who can crash after the fish and get them, but there are also those who
see where those people need to go to achieve greater things. This is why you were chosen.
He would not fail.

The importance of the Test of the Emerald Champion was such that the Emperor himself witnessed
the final duel. The importance of the Emperor was such that anyone else who could possibly manage
it also witnessed the final duel. From where Toturi stood, the crowd spread out before him, the finery
of their brilliant kimono making the tournament field look like a meadow of summer flowers. The
great lords and their favored vassals were seated on stands that had been built on the east side,
flanking the Emperor’s box, the less fortunate standing wherever they could find room. The murmur
of the crowd as those present exchanged gossip, rumors, and the occasional morsel of real
information was like the sea rolling onto shore.
These things show us the bright flame of the world’s glory.
No. Now was the time for focus.
At the Imperial Herald’s signal, Toturi began to walk slowly toward the center of the field.
Bayushi Aramoro walked from the opposite direction. When the two men were ten paces apart, they
stopped and bowed to each other, then faced east and prostrated themselves before the Emperor.
The Imperial Herald stepped forward to read a short pronouncement by the Emperor, and then a
shugenja blessed both the combatants and the tournament field. As the comforting weight of time-
honored ritual surrounded him, Toturi offered a fervent prayer to his ancestors, asking for their
blessing on him.
Akodo-no-Kami—Brother—may you guide me to the right path.
These ceremonies done, both men arose and moved five paces away from each other. Now
came the demonstration of skill, a last chance for a duelist to flaunt their skill before the real

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challenge of the duel. Aramoro, being of lesser status, went first. At his signal, a Scorpion boy
approached, carrying two apples. As Aramoro dropped into his dueling stance, the boy quickly
tossed the fruit into the air, one after another. Aramoro drew and swiftly made multiple cuts as the
apples fell to earth. The boy gathered the pieces from the ground and carried them to the head judge,
who counted them. “Sixteen!” he announced, and a burst of admiring comments swept through the
crowd.
Toturi kept his face impassive as unease spread through him like a drop of ink in a bowl of
clean water. it wasn’t the show of skill itself—while it was an impressive trick, it didn’t show
Aramoro to be more skillful than Toturi had expected. There was something wrong with his
opponent's stance. There was a distracted air about it, as if Aramoro was concentrating on more than
just the matter at hand.
These things show us—
He had no time for Yojiro’s distractions.
Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, Toturi moved forward a few paces. Then he
slowly and carefully began a basic iai kata, one so old it was said to have been invented by Kakita
himself. He slowly bent his legs into an iai stance, and then with equal slowness put his right hand
on the hilt of his katana while the left steadied the sheath.
Moments trickled by in silence, and then Toturi drew his blade, slowly sweeping it in a
smooth, clean arc. There was no time. There was no crowd. There was only the man, and the blade,
and the erasure of the difference between them. At the end of the arc, Toturi stopped. In one careful,
controlled motion, he performed the flicking movement intended to clean the blade of any blood.
Then, he slowly went through the process of returning the sword to its sheath.
In the silence that followed, confusion marred the faces of most watchers; only a few samurai
seemed approving of his form. He discreetly glanced over to the Crane delegation, where Doji
Hotaru was doing a credible job of looking impassive. Kakita Toshimoko sat next to her, grinning
broadly. Both had clearly recognized the insult he had just issued to Aramoro: You won’t see my
draw when we duel, so I will show it to you now, slowly. It was tempting to look to-see if Aramoro
had caught it, but—that would ruin the effect.
At a signal from the head judge, two assistants came forward to attach long paper targets to
the forearms of both men. When his targets were secured, Toturi turned back toward his opponent
and blinked in surprise. During the process of receiving his targets, Aramoro had contrived to move

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his position, so that he now stood farther to the east. There was nothing forbidding him from doing
so, but in facing the westering sun, he had chosen to put himself at a slight disadvantage. This time
there was no holding off the unease that surged through Toturi. Aramoro was clearly up to
something, and there was nothing Toturi could do about it.
The duel was now, and he could not stop it because of vague feelings of uneasiness.
Toturi centered himself, focusing on the simple process of breathing. He breathed in from
his belly.
If Aramoro was seeking to cheat, then Aramoro was a weak opponent. He held his breath.
He would not fear such a person, but he did want to know what he was facing. He breathed
out through his nose, finding strength in his core.
As he stepped forward and bowed once more to Aramoro, Toturi studied him. Something
linked Aramoro's stance and his decision to face into the west. When he deciphered what it was, he
could figure out how to defeat the trick. If he still had time.
Aramoro settled into his stance. Toturi did likewise, seeking deep within for the calm that
iai required, trying to wall off his upper mind’s feverish attempts to unravel the mystery.
These things show us—
Aramoro moved his head slightly. His face was obscured by his mask, but his eyes squinted
against the setting sun.
His stance.
The sun.
—the bright flame of the world’s glory.
Shutting his eyes, he drew, relying on his speed and the memory of exactly where Aramoro
was.
His blade hissed through the air, and then he heard the startled reaction of the crowd.
He opened his eyes. Aramoro stood with his sword half-drawn and both of his paper targets
cut clean away.
Toturi had won.

After his acceptance of the Emperor's official appointment and the Emerald Armor came the endless
round of well-wishers, most of whom subtly or not so subtly wanted Toturi to appoint some relative

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or another as an Emerald Magistrate. Fending them all off was as exhausting as battle. The next to
approach him was his wife. What was she going to ask him for?
“You have brought great glory to your ancestors,” she said, bowing to him.
“I will strive to maintain that glory,” Toturi replied.
“And your kata before the duel was a thing of great beauty.” Kaede said.
Her eyes twinkled as she said it, and Toturi realized that she, too, had seen the insult behind
it. He smiled back at her. “I am pleased you appreciated it.”
Kaede gave a small smile in return, and then moved off. As she left, the crowd swirling
around the tournament field shifted, and for a moment Toturi caught a glimpse of Bayushi Yojiro
speaking with a Scorpion courtier. Then the crowd shifted again, hiding him from view.
What was Yojiro playing at? Why had he warned Toturi against Aramoro’s trick? Was he
acting as an honorable magistrate, seeking to defend the integrity of the office of the Emerald
Magistrates? Or was this some very deep Scorpion plan to get Yojiro into Toruri’s trust? Few things
were certain when dealing with the Clan of Secrets.
At last, the Ruby Champion, his second-in-command, approached and gave him a deep bow.
“It shall be an honor to serve you, Champion Akodo Toturi-sama,” Agasha Sumiko said
ceremonially. “We have much to discuss, when you have time.”
“No doubt,” Toturi replied with a slight bow of his own. “I look forward to working
together.”
The Dragon bowed once more, the ruby of her armor glimmering in the sun. Was she
someone he could finally trust? Or had she been somehow complicit in the death of his predecessor?
What new details about the death of Lord Doji Satsume would be revealed to him now that he would
be overseeing the investigation?
For a moment, the Emerald Armor weighed down on him like the bulk of a mountain. The
weight of the Lion Clan had been one thing, but now he served all of the Empire. Toturi reflexively
straightened.
He was a Lion samurai, of Akodo’s own line.
He would not fail.

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 “The sharpest bite comes from hidden teeth.”
– Shinsei

He was as the young wildcat that had once stood in her path and hissed at her horse. It had been on
a narrow mountain path, the last time she rode from Castle Agasha to Otosan Uchi. Although the
cat snarled, its golden fur bristling, her horse had demonstrated the quality of its training by walking
on. The cat bolted, disappearing down the mountain rather than be trampled. So it would likely be
now.
Agasha Sumiko’s opponent watched her every move, a fierce intensity to his gaze that would
have had her punish him for his defiance, were he any other student. She stood before him without
her armor and wielding only a pair of wooden bokken, but she moved as she would have on a
battlefield: her stance relaxed, the practice weapons extensions of her limbs. She demonstrated again
the exercises from niten, her movements elegant and fluid. She clacked the swords together in a
cross above her head, swept them down and thrust with the longer bokken, the shorter sword arcing
under to disable her invisible foe. Then another clack, another move, another clack, and on went the
rhythm of the dance.
Hantei Sotorii had not yet found his rhythm. He mimicked the thrust, sweep, the dull thud
of wood on wood. Yet there was no intent in the prince’s movements despite the grim determination
in his eyes. He was an imperfect reflection: all the forms were there, but there was no flow, no
unifying grace. While Sumiko handled the bokken with the respect she would her own weapons, the
prince gripped them tight as though to punish them.
Dissatisfied with his performance, she began to demonstrate again.
“Enough!” the prince shouted, and she ceased at once, bowing low to her student.

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 “You did well, Your Highness,” she told him. “To master the two-sword style takes many
years. I will gladly guide you in your pursuit of the art.”
“I was only curious,” he said defensively. “Satsume-sensei taught me everything he knew,
and I need no more than that to win my own battles!”
“As you wish, Your Highness,” she replied.
Attendants stepped forward to offer the prince water, for his face was red. They did not offer
such courtesy to Sumiko, the Ruby Champion, but she had been teaching the way of the sword since
before the young prince was born, and it took more than a few drills to wind her.
“We must duel with katana, like real warriors,” the prince exclaimed suddenly. “I have
invited those present to witness my training. Let us give them something worth watching!”
He lacks patience. He did not excel on his first try, so he means to compensate and succeed
elsewhere instead. “If that is your desire, Your Highness,” she said, relinquishing her bokken to the
prince’s attendants.
The gaze of the courtiers upon her back was as hot as the sun bearing down on them. Poor
souls—none had a sufficient reason to excuse them from attending the spectacle. Kitsuki Yaruma
was there, too, wilting in the heat. He did not deserve this. She would cut the exercises short, for his
sake. He’d helped her too many times, and she owed him at least this much.
She took up her stance.
The prince took his place and faced her, ready for the mock duel.
Had this been a real encounter, the fight would have been over before it began. Sumiko stood
like the mountains of her home—taller than the prince, with longer reach, and weathered by years
of experience.
The prince facing her in his silks was like the little golden cat, but he was still the heir
apparent. His power and position demanded unquestioning respect.
They drew their swords, her Agasha blade blindingly bright in the sunlight. As she readied
the specially forged katana, its sharp edge was shadowed for a moment, revealing the choji pattern,
the dragon teeth that gave the katana its name.
She would give him but one blade for now.
Sumiko extended her arm slowly, giving the prince time to react.
He jabbed prematurely, and she barely had to move to avoid the blow.
The Kakita style was precise, lightning fast. This young Hantei was no Kakita duelist.

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 Doji Satsume had trained him, but had he taught him anything? The old sensei’s loyalty to
the Emperor and his line had been a great virtue, but it may have blinded him as well. Had honor
and protocol kept the man from criticizing the young prince?
Sumiko stepped back, allowed him a breath to recover, to attack again. Sotorii had undergone
his gempuku, had his head shaved into the topknot style, and had been formally invested as the
crown prince. But at heart, he was still a boy. Only a child would feel such a need to prove himself
before the court this way.
Sumiko gave him chance after chance to prove himself with her exaggerated movements,
which were also meant to remind the audience that this was still a lesson.
The prince furrowed his brow, realizing with frustration each missed opportunity. His attacks
grew wilder, the thrusts and cuts harder, metal clanging painfully in an affront to their razor-edged
blades.
The prince seemed intent on provoking her into fighting him as an equal, yet she held back.
She had to, as his old sensei must have done.
Sumiko attacked again, and the prince knocked her sword aside in a hurried swipe. If they
continued like this, he would damage his blade. The Agasha forging techniques would lend hers
some protection, but not against the most flagrant abuse.
Still she did not end the duel, waiting instead for the prince to find an opening and gain the
victory he so coveted. He grunted in frustration, crying out as he tried again and again. He refused
to vary his moves, expecting to win by determination and sheer force, despite his size disadvantage.
At last, Sumiko swept her katana in a smooth arc, bringing the blade to rest gently at the
prince’s shoulder. Refusing to acknowledge that she could have severed his head, the prince darted
forward and thrust his katana at her belly. She twisted slightly, felt the bite of cold steel in warm
flesh. As blood bloomed on white fabric, a gasp escaped the crowd.
For a moment, there was silence in the garden. Sumiko studied the young Hantei. His gaze
was on her wounded side, his eyes widening with excitement, his lip curling into a satisfied smile.
He cared for winning more than he cared for honor.
Sumiko bowed to the prince, letting the courtiers know she had not received a serious wound
after all.
She had let him cut her a little, to satisfy his pride. She did not know what would become of
her if she hadn’t.

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 “Isn’t your sword enchanted?” the prince crowed. “What good is it if it cannot win you
duels? Does it pine for its companion?”
“They were made as a pair,” Sumiko conceded calmly, sheathing her sword.
Courtiers rushed forward to congratulate their prince on his victory as he motioned for his
chair.
Sumiko sought out her old friend, nodding politely to the courtiers that passed her, the Crane
in their fine embroidered kimono, the Scorpion hiding behind their masks, the Lion with stony faces.
It would have been impossible for them to miss the demonstration of the prince’s temperament.
Then there he was—the Dragon Clan ambassador to the Imperial Court, standing tall with
green silk hanging in heavy waves from his bony shoulders.
“The prince has teeth of his own, Champion,” Yaruma said as she approached.
“He will not lose battles through lack of effort, Yaruma-sama,” she replied, pitching her
voice low so the words would not carry.
He frowned slightly, but only changed the subject.
“I should like to see your blades at work together,” he said, “the dragon’s teeth and claws.”
It was a subject close to her heart, but it also gave her the pretense she needed to meet with
him and discuss matters she could not mention here.
“You are welcome to visit and view them properly,” Sumiko said, “I hope you will come to
see me this evening, Yaruma-san. You have an eye for detail, and you sometimes see things that I
do not.”
He was no investigator, but he was still Kitsuki, and she trusted him. If she could voice her
fears to anyone, it would be him.
He regarded her for a moment, seeming to grasp her meaning. “I thank you for the
invitation,” Yaruma said. “I will gladly view your daishō this evening. Now I have work to do
inside, out of this sun, and you had best see to that wound.”
Sumiko allowed herself a smile. “It is nothing,” she insisted. “I look forward to your visit,
and I promise the sake will be cool. Good day to you, Yaruma-san.”
Sumiko looked back to the prince, only to find him watching her from his cushioned seat.
He waved away the other courtiers, and she approached him with her skin prickling, a strange heavy
feeling in her gut. “What did you talk of with the Dragon ambassador?” the prince demanded as she
bowed to the ground before him.

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 “We spoke of your prowess, Your Highness,” she said. “I will continue your training
personally, if you wish it. Perhaps you will desire to continue our lessons in the niten style another
day.”
“Ha! Satsume-sensei said that only a fool needs two hands where one will do. I will master
that style one day, but I think I will practice proper swordsmanship first. Akodo Toturi can take over
my training.”
“Of course,” she said. “You wish to duel as the Emerald Champion dueled.”
“Did I not best the Ruby Champion herself today? Why not the Emerald Champion
tomorrow?”
His ridiculous boast made her forget herself, and she looked up into his eyes. They were still
bright with excitement. She dropped her gaze. Young though he was, he had power over everyone
but his father. Perhaps she had been wrong for allowing him to hurt her, reminding him of that
power.
A shadow fell over her, the unrelenting sun replaced by a sudden gloom. She thought for a
moment that he had stood, about to make some terrible proclamation, but it was only clouds
gathering.
“Tell me,” the prince demanded. “What do you think of the Emerald Champion?”
“His draw was very fine,” she said. “Superbly executed.”
“Yes, I know that, but do you think he will be as great an Emerald Champion as Satsume-
sensei?”
Sumiko did not know how to answer without answering, as Yaruma would have done. She
did not yet know Akodo Toturi, so could not yet trust him. She had not been a friend of Doji
Satsume’s, but she had never questioned his loyalty, nor he hers. She had respected him, and they
always worked well together. Everything would be different under the new champion, but she could
not voice her uneasiness.
“Speak up,” the prince said.
Thunder grumbled through the gardens, and the prince stood suddenly, without waiting for
her answer.
“Curse the rain! What’s the point of shugenja if they can’t even keep the skies clear?”
She kept her mouth closed. Did the prince really expect shugenja to interfere with the seasons
and the natural order, just so he could train in the sunshine?

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 The departure of Hantei Sotorii became a parade as his bodyguards, courtiers, servants, and
attendants fell into step behind him. Colorful silks swept around the figures in the rising breeze,
many marked with the Imperial chrysanthemum, trailing like tail feathers, but the sun did not return.
Perhaps Lady Sun herself had been ashamed to witness the prince’s behavior.

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“You’ve made it,” said Kaede, her eyes brightening as Seppun lshikawa bowed into the cramped
alcove.
“You are looking well, Lady Akodo.”
Kaede winced. “Please, Ishikawa. Not so formal.” She gestured to the empty cushion on the
opposite side of the table. Ishikawa took his seat, casting frequent glances at the rest of the sparse
teahouse. Patrons whispered beneath the filtered shade of amber lanterns amid plucks of the biwa,
but none looked their way. “I hope I have not inconvenienced you too much,” she said, pouring
straw-colored tea into his cup.
He shook his head. "Not at all. I was hoping we would have a chance to speak." He searched
the room once more before looking back to her. “You are here unescorted?”
“I can take care of myself, Ishikawa.”
“These meetings will be easier once you and your husband have officially moved to the
Palace of the Emerald Champion.”
She didn’t reply, and instead pushed his teacup forward. “Here. You will have to drink the
whole kettle, I am afraid. I do not care for the blend, myself.”
“No?” He held the cup close to his nose, then sipped. “It is a strong soldier’s tea," he
remarked. “Bitter. Suited to strengthening one’s resolve.”
“It is mostly barley.” She chuckled. “It is the only blend they seem to serve in this province.
I complained about it to my husband, actually. It is enough to make one miss golden needle.” She
looked away, resting her pointed chin on her palm. “It is enough to make one miss many things,”
she added softly.

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 He set his cup down. “We should close the shōji.” He reached toward the lattice and rice-
paper screen.
“Leave it open,” she said without looking.
Ishikawa grimaced, but withdrew his hand. “You know how this would look if someone saw
us.”
“How would it look if we were hiding behind a screen? Can two old friends not visit in a
public place?” She turned toward him. “We can speak freely here.”
“As you say. Still, your husband may not approve of your coming here unescorted.”
“You know him better than I,” she quietly replied.
Ishikawa leaned back and folded his hands on the table. He said nothing, just watching her.
Kaede waited, the pressure in her chest slowly building, until he finally offered her a mute nod.
Words spilled from her mouth. “I do not know how to be a good wife to him,” she confessed. The
shame torched her cheeks. "He avoids me. He barely speaks to me. His face never changes. I am not
even sure how he feels about me. I...” She closed her eyes. She should not be telling these things to
the Captain of the Imperial Guard, a man who would work closely with her husband, the newly
minted Emerald Champion. “I am not even sure who he really is. How am I to ease the tensions
between our clans as his wife if I cannot even know what lies in his heart?”
“Give it time," Ishikawa finally said. “It may comfort you to know that few in the Empire
know the mind of Akodo Toturi. Chief among his greatest strengths is that he cannot be predicted
or easily read. But you are not merely anyone, Maryoku-no-Kaede. You are the daughter of the Void
Master himself and his greatest student. You survived three months in the mountains of the Dragon
Clan. This should be no contest.”
She bit her lip.
“Do you remember when we were children?” Ishikawa continued. “In the summer, my father
would visit yours, and I would stay with your family. At night, you would leave all the windows
open so that the fireflies would come into the house. You said you wanted there to be stars inside as
well as out.” He smiled. “One so willful would not surrender hope so easily.”
The heat did not leave her face, but Kaede nodded. “Perhaps,” she whispered.
Ishikawa reached into his collar and withdrew a rectangle of folded red paper. It was tied
with a strip of ribbon and painted with the mon of the Isawa. He placed it on the table. “A letter
from your brother.”

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 Her eyes widened. She swept it up, inhaling the scent of pine and sandalwood steeped into
the paper. The golden pagodas of Kyūden Isawa flashed ephemerally in her mind. “You have done
me a great kindness,” she said.
“It is nothing,” he replied. “It does me well to see you smile.”
Kaede set the letter aside and refilled his cup. “So,” she said, “you were in Phoenix lands
recently.” She hesitated. “Did you speak with Father, then?”
He nodded.
“Did he... say anything? About... the unusual situation?”
He stopped, teacup hovering just before his lips. Slowly he lowered it. She kept her face like
a still pond, pushing her churning stomach down from her surface thoughts.
“He did.” Ishikawa kept his voice low. She had to lean in to catch his words. “It is getting
worse. Two new stars have appeared in the northern sky. The Asako cannot discern why.
Meanwhile, the water kami ignore all but the greatest of offerings. The Elemental Masters debate
over what should be done.” He paused. “Your father said the tsunami that savaged the Crane coast
could be related.”
Kaede clenched her jaw “Did he say how?”
“I am afraid any explanation would be beyond my ability to understand.”
She nodded, then drew a deep breath to steady herself. “It is spreading. I have felt it here as
well.”
The color drained from Ishikawa's face.
“The summer rains have been few and far between,” she continued. “The kami of the clouds
will not speak to me. And there are other signs more subtle than can be explained.”
“Have you said anything? To your husband? To anyone?”
Her gaze rested on her wrists, where the mon of the Akodo stared back. “I cannot,” she
admitted. “If the Lion sense that the Phoenix cannot defend themselves...” She left the rest unsaid.
“Kaede.” Ishikawa’s expression was grave. “If the imbalance is spreading...” He searched
for words, anguish briefly flickering across his features. “You realize what I must do,” he finally
said. He lowered his head. “Forgive me. I have no choice.”
The din of the teahouse prevailed between them. Kaede slowly moved her hand forward
along the table, letting it rest just beside Ishikawa’s. He looked up.

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 “Please,” she whispered. “Father entrusted you with this. I ask that you trust him in turn. The
masters will bring it before the Seppun in due time. But we must comprehend it first, or the other
clans will act in haste. It could make things worse.” She met his gaze. “Please, Ishikawa. For me?”
Ishikawa looked into her midnight eyes for a long time. At last he pulled back, putting the
cup to his lips and emptying it in a slow inhale. Then, he closed his eyes and nodded.
“Thank you,” Kaede said. “I will not forget.”
“I will have another cup of that tea,” Ishikawa replied.

Ishikawa mounted his horse, checking that his things were in place. As the servant took the horse
by the reins, he took one last look back. Through the window of the tea house, he saw that Kaede
was still there. She was speaking to someone, smiling, laughing. But not in her eyes.
He turned away, darkening. He whispered, “You are not worthy of her, Toturi-sama.”

After reading it for the second time, Kaede set down her brother’s letter and looked into the paper
lantern in the corner. Soldiers glowed in vivid color on its surface, locked as they were in perpetual
battle against the giant moths attracted by the light. “Tadaka,” she whispered, “why must you always
take the shortest path to your goals?”
“My lady?”
Kaede looked up. Her servant’s curious expression glowed in the lantern light, made even
more vibrant by her white makeup. “My brother,” Kaede explained. “It seems he has challenged his
sensei to a duel.”
The maidservant’s face melted into an expression of horror. “With his own sensei? But... the
bond between a sensei and student is sacred! Are such things common among the Phoenix?”
“Maki-san,” Kaede said flatly, “kindly fetch me some paper and implements. I will return
my brother's letter tonight.”
The woman lowered her head, touching it to the floor. “Of course,” she murmured, slipping
out of the room.
From beyond the silk screen separating Kaede from the balcony came a distant, mournful
wail. She turned toward the screen and listened for a reply, but none came. A lone wolf, she decided.
They were common in her mountainous homelands, but not here in the open plains of the Lion,

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where the farms were well guarded and the roads well traveled, even at night. It would be far from
home, then. Calling out in vain search of something familiar.
Kaede rose and stole the lantern from the drunken moths. Leaving the letter open on the
table, entrusting its contents to the tangled glyphs of the Phoenix cipher, she took impatient steps
away from her room. The hall outside was a perfect square; her lantern’s light just grazed the stair’s
banister. Distantly, the night servants gossiped in low tones. They awaited Toturi’s return, whenever
that would be. Kaede looked over the banister and saw their shadows in the flickering lights.
The sliding door across the way was painted with a scene depicting a pride of lions disrupting
a flock of feeding cranes. Beyond that door was her husband’s study. Kaede's pulse quickened as
she considered the shōji’s tapestry and wondered what might lie beyond.
“Never mind, Maki-san,” she called out. A slight smile parted her lips. “I will get them
myself.”
She approached the door with her weight on her toes. The eyes of mural animals followed
her as she went.
Am I not the head of my husband’s household? Can I not go wherever I please?
Painted lion eyes watched her palm as it pressed against the door's lattice, sliding the screen
aside.
Toturi’s unlit study was plain and utilitarian. Kaede’s heart skipped at a humanoid silhouette
in the corner, but then the lantern light revealed the polished lamellar plates of empty armor, and
she relaxed, releasing a self-admonishing breath; It is only the servants who are not allowed in here.
Her rationale had no effect on her racing, mischievous heart. Like a child seeking treats, she entered
the room, slowly closing the door behind her.
She set the lantern down and approached her husband's knee-high desk, each step conjuring
an accusing squeak from the nightingale floor. Her gaze floated from one object to the next: an
empty daishō stand by the door, a sheathed kodachi with the Matsu mon on its pommel, a crisply
folded origami crane resting on a squat pedestal, and a three-tiered tana shelf displaying ancient
scrolls. The shelf in particular drew her interest. Many of the scrolls were made from bound slats of
bamboo, predating the invention of paper.
Atop the shelf, lantern light glinted off a carved stone lion. This was a replica of the guardian
lion of the Celestial Cloud Monastery, exactly as it appeared in her memory. Her father had laughed
when she’d climbed onto its back as a child. Her outstretched fingers traced the grooves in the

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polished granite. The familiar style was unmistakable: this was carved by Asako hands. What was
this replica doing in the study of the Lion Champion?
Kaede looked away. Paper, she reminded herself. Paper, ink, and a brush. Nothing else.
The desk was frustratingly Clean, nothing like the desks she’d rummaged through as an
adolescent. The lone foldout drawer did contain some inksticks and a brush, but no inkstone.
Halfway there. She set them on the desk.
Now where does he keep his—?
Her foot struck something mid-step. Gasping in pain, she hit the floor as the squat coffer
scattered its contents. Kaede grimaced at the wooden box, once hidden in the shadows but now
illuminated by the lantern. "Stupid," she chided herself and pushed up from the floor.
Or maybe not. Among the contents spilled, she spied a smooth inkstone, a water vial, and a
collapsed stack of papers. Triumphant, she scooted to the box and collected her discovery. As
she did, the lantern revealed one final object: a thin bound notebook, cast to the floor. Kaede
froze. She’d seen books like this. It was almost certainly a journal, entrusted with the intimate
thoughts of its owner. Toturi’s journal.
That’s not fair.
Her letter forgotten, she sat at his desk and laid the book in front of her. Her stomach churned
with a sense of invasion. Spilt water will not return to the tray. I have come this far; I may as well
have a look. Her hand hovered over the cover. It will probably be ciphered, anyway. Her fingers
curled beneath the cover. And if it’s not, shouldn’t a wife know the mind of her husband? With a
nod, she flung it aside.
She frowned. The first page was blank but for the number “1" written on the corner. She
turned the page. The next two were also blank. Puzzled, she flipped the book to a random place.
There. Something written in High Rokugani. As an ocean to a small stream, the leader to
his people, this is the Tao to the world.
From the Tao of Shinsei. On the next page she found two more quotes. She furrowed her
brow and flipped through. Some pages contained entire sutras. Many were empty. Is he copying
portions of the Tao?
Sighing, Kaede looked up from her fruitless search. The door was open. Watching from the
entrance stood Akodo Toturi.
The journal clattered to the floor from her limp fingers.

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 Toturi was still dressed in his sandy travel clothes, his swords tucked into his belt. in the
shadows cast by the lantern, she could not read his face.
Her mouth went instantly dry as a wave hot guilt rushed over her. She felt like a fox caught
with a rice ball in its mouth. She lowered her head. “It is inexcusable,” she finally croaked, and
awaited his angry outburst.
Instead, he slipped the swords from his obi and set them on their stand by the door. Then he
crossed the study to open the sliding door, exposing the balcony. The night air tussled her dark hair.
Her husband stood enshrined within a perfect moon. Beyond, the wild grasses of Lion fields were
dotted by countless fireflies. For a long time, they remained that way. Toturi finally spoke. “Have
you ever heard the story of Shinsei and Akodo?”
When she did not reply, he continued. “After the Little Teacher conversed with Hantei-no-
Kami, and Lord Shiba wrote what would become the Tao, Akodo One-Eye made to leave. Hantei
called out to him, ‘Brother, you show disrespect to this monk and his wisdom.’ Akodo simply
replied, ‘His way is not my way.’
“Shiba spoke then: ‘It is not his way, but the way of the world.’ Again, Akodo replied, ‘It is
not my way.’
“Finally Shinsei spoke, saying ‘The Tao cannot be one thing, for then it could not be
another.’ When he did, Akodo drew his sword and raised it high. ‘This is my way,’ he said, and
left.”
Kaede’s reply came in a whisper. “l have never heard it told that way.”
Toturi turned. The strong features of his moonlit face were devoid of anger. “Originally
Akodo forbade any copy of the Tao to enter Lion lands. When the Emperor heard this, he decreed
the opposite: a copy of the Tao should rest in a place of honor within every Lion dojo. And it is so,
even to this day.” Toturi returned his gaze to the starry fields. “And to this day, not a single copy
has ever been opened. No one would dare. Not even the Lion Clan Champion.”
Kaede’s eyes widened. She felt as if she held his very heart in her hands. In that moment,
the clouds in her mind parted, and for a brief flash, she saw the moon.
She sat at Toturi’s desk. Ritualistically, she prepared ink, then opened his journal to the first
page. She dipped the brush and wrote with careful, practiced strokes.

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 When she reached the third page, she sensed his eyes upon her. He wore open confusion,
gaze locked in shock. “You are missing many sections,” she remarked. “Fortunately, I have it
memorized. I could probably complete it tonight.” She met his eyes. “If it pleases you.”
Toturi looked away. He was gone within moments, out the door and into the hall.
Kaede lowered the brush in tandem with her heart. She was a brittle leaf in his wake, cast
helplessly without direction. Her eyes dimmed. Failure was a lone brushstroke on the cold, empty
page of her husband’s journal.
“I will never reach him,” she concluded, and began to put the implements away.
She stopped. Toturi was at the door again. Now he carried an iron kettle and a small wooden
tray. As he set these down, Kaede spotted several small cups and a green brick of compressed leaves.
It was bound in twine, a slip of paper identifying the tea. It bore the mon of the Isawa.
She gasped. “Golden needle,” she whispered.
“I thought it might be more to your liking.” Toturi broke the brick and steeped the leaves.
His movements were deliberate, practiced. He placed a cup before her with avoidant eyes, turning
it thrice. He poured. Kaede inhaled the scent of pine, citrus, and sun-roasted leaves. Home. They
looked up in tandem. In the moonlight, his cheeks were slightly red.

He sat in the lotus pose on the balcony, looking out at the night. She sat beside him. Fireflies hovered
around them. In their brief sparks, the swaying of the midnight grass did not seem so different to
Kaede than that in the lands of her birth.
“You will let in the fireflies,” she warned.
Toturi placed his hand, palm up, on the wooden floor. “You do not mind, I hope?”
“Not at all,” she replied, and rested her hand in his.

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 “Not every question has a perfect answer, but every answer has a perfect question.”
– Shinsei

Toturi woke to a shrill wail, like the keening of some mournful spirit. He sat up, chilled despite the
summer warmth of the room, but the sound stopped abruptly as he moved. He was alone with the
shadows, their shapes weak in the moonglow through the screen. His sword rested on the stand by
the door, but he did not reach for it. No sound save for the distant buzz of insects outside, and no
movement. The wail was already a memory, a fragment from a dream perhaps. He put a hand to the
mat beside him, and found the space cold.
Where is Kaede?
He rose silently and pulled on his robe, moving towards the screen, instinct telling him where
she would be. He slid it aside, revealing an expanse of silver and grey. A lone figure sat on the
veranda, her black hair hanging loose down her back. Her white kimono shone in the moonlight, as
though she were a ghost.
“Kaede,” he began, “are you well?”
She did not turn, so he moved to sit beside her, crossing his legs under him. It was her fourth
broken night. He wished he had awoken, as he had the previous times, and held her.
She does not have to face her troubles alone.
She remained motionless with her head bowed, her face partially hidden by her hair. Even
the air was still, offering little relief from the heat. She seemed to be listening; not to him, or the
continuous chirp of the crickets, but to something beyond.
“Kaede.”
He put a hand very gently on her shoulder, startling her.
“Toturi, forgive me.”

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 She turned to offer him a bow, and her face was calm, if pale, as she sat back on her heels.
Her eyes shone but there were no tears, no sign that the unnatural sound had come from her.
“Were you dreaming again?” he asked quietly, aware that conversation at such an hour might
draw notice.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“You have not gone to the Realm of Void.”
“No, husband. Yet, in my sleep... I travel not to Yume-dō, but nevertheless, my soul wanders.
I have seen them: spirits, walking through the fields, searching for something. I must go to them.”
“Let us talk inside,” Toturi said, before she could say more.
She obeyed, returning with him into the Palace of the Emerald Champion. He closed the
screen against the night and lit a lamp, while Kaede settled herself on the tatami mats. He would
have fetched tea for her were he not afraid to leave her alone.
“I must go at dawn,” she said, as he knelt before her. “I must go to Toshi Ranbo.”
That city haunted his dreams as well, though for different reasons. His brother’s memory
was itself like a ghost, and Agasha Sumiko raised the subject of the city’s fate at every meeting.
“Perhaps they are but dreams,” he tried to reassure her. “Your sleep was not troubled until
you received the letter from your father. Your thoughts dwell on spirits—that is all.”
“Four nights,” she whispered. “And this time, I saw a face.”
“Whose face?”
“I cannot be sure.”
She bit her lip, her eyes distant. Toturi waited, but did not press her.
“Our shugenja must go at once,” she said. “With or without me. Have you approved my
honored father’s petition?”
“Daidoji Uji holds the city now,” he explained. “The Iron Crane could take offense at
assertions his shugenja have failed to appease the fallen. That’s why I must refuse the Phoenix
petition.”
“You have decided this?”
He nodded, although there was still doubt in his mind. She did not question his decision, but
she gazed thoughtfully at the floor for a long time.
“Then I will go alone,” she said at last. “He cannot take offense at a single visitor. He will
have to welcome the wife of the Emerald Champion.”

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 “No,” Toturi said. “I forbid you to go.”
The cicadas’ song filled the silence.
You are too precious to risk.
Her face remained still. “As you wish, husband.”
She gave him a formal bow and moved to leave. But he could not bear to let her depart with
his harsh words hanging between them.
And so, he was resolved. “I will go,” he said. “I will go to Toshi Ranbo, and see for myself
that the spirits are at peace.”
He had considered such before, but now he was left with no other option. It was the only
way to satisfy the Phoenix without offending the Crane.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice trembling.
His chest ached to see her so desperately seeking control.
“You’re exhausted,” he said. “Try to sleep.”
She did not leave him that night, and they slept with the lamp burning.

Toturi rolled the seal gently, leaving the image of the Imperial chrysanthemum in emerald green on
the scroll. The weight of the seal in his hand was still unfamiliar, cumbersome—as was the power
it symbolized. Power granted him by the Emperor, the Son of Heaven himself, and all it took was
the press of his mark to paper to change the fate of a samurai, a family, a clan. It was not a mark to
make lightly. He watched the emerald paste dry. It shone in the sunlight pouring in the screen beside
him, glistening slightly, like the precious stone ground to make the pigment. He pushed the scroll
aside with a sigh; he had many more to read and consider.
“The Ruby Champion has arrived,” came the servant’s voice.
The rest would have to wait until his return. Toturi cleaned the seal carefully and replaced it
in its box before nodding to indicate his readiness to greet Agasha Sumiko.
The Dragon warrior shuffled across the threshold and bowed low. As she sat back, she
revealed a face impassive as ever, yet her cheeks were flushed and her hair unusually disordered.
Unless she had been training in the kimono she wore, she had taken to heart the message that the
matter was urgent.
“Champion Toturi, the servant led me to believe my presence was required at once.”
Her words were perfectly polite, but the emphasis on the word “champion” sounded forced.

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 “Sumiko-san, thank you for coming so promptly. I wished to talk to you before I left, and I
leave soon. Until I return, you may act with my full authority.”
Sumiko’s face remained composed, her eyes on the mat before her, but her reply betrayed
her surprise. “Of course,” she said. “But where do you go?”
“I go chasing ghosts,” he said, and this time she forgot herself for a moment, and her eyes
met his.
“Ghosts?”
“My wife has been troubled by dreams of Toshi Ranbo,” he told her. “Since she heard the
rumors of restless spirits beyond its walls, her own thoughts have become restless. She has asked to
go herself and investigate the possible disturbance, but I cannot allow her to travel. At present, her
health is delicate.”
He paused as the wind rustled the scrolls on the table beside him.
From Sumiko’s approving nod, she had probably guessed his reasoning. Hotaru would not
have sought war had the Crane Clan Champion stayed in the city, but he did not know enough of
the Daidoji daimyō to be sure of his actions. Already the threat of war loomed between Lion and
Crane, and between Lion and Unicorn. Toturi would not allow the peaceable Phoenix to be dragged
into the conflict as well.
“While I am there, I will speak to General Daidoji and determine his intentions. I hope to
find a way to secure the fate of the city, without the need for war.”
“I hope your wife feels strong again soon, Champion,” Sumiko said. “I am glad she has
convinced you to act, though I could not.”
Even now, Sumiko believes I do not listen to her.
There was nothing challenging in her demeanor, only in her words. Yet the play of her hair
in the wind made her stillness seem forced. All Toturi’s life, his thoughtfulness had been mistaken
for inaction, or worse, indifference. He had hoped Sumiko might understand, but not all Dragon
samurai had the patience of monks. Perhaps if she had, she would have never made her way to her
current position in the capital, where few Dragons dwelled.
“You could not convince me to claim the city for the Emperor against the Emperor’s
wishes,” Toturi reminded her. “That does not mean I wish to see war between the clans.”

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 Toturi glanced at the lacquered box that contained the seal of his office. It would take a
demonstration of his trust to earn hers. He would not be away for long; she could not undo all his
work in so short a span, even if she wished to.
“Toshi Ranbo is on the minds of many,” Sumiko said, reclaiming his attention. “There are
rumors now of new mines near the city, gem veins recently discovered. Even the possibility of jade
will tempt the Crab.”
Why did she not tell me this before? I cannot listen if she does not speak.
“The conflict between Crane and Lion,” Toturi said, his tone carefully neutral, “has already
caused enough strife. Then there was the Unicorn petition that would have brought the city under
Imperial Control... and Scorpion influence. And now the Crab will also want a say in the city’s fate.”
Sumiko said nothing. Perhaps she did not trust him enough to speak plainly. Perhaps he
should have invited her to share sake in an evening, as Kitsuki Yaruma did. The trust of a long
friendship could not be forced, but Toturi needed her support in his new position.
“Sumiko-san, in your conferences with the Dragon Clan ambassador, has he given you any
reason to suppose your own clan takes some interest in the city as well?”
“My lord, we meet as friends. We discuss trivial matters over sake. We talk of home, we talk
of the weather. He has made no mention of Toshi Ranbo.” She paused, a question left unasked. He
did not tell her the rumors he had heard; they were only rumors.
She thinks I question her loyalty, but she must earn my trust as well.
His own loyalty to the Empire was still questioned by some, and he had yet to prove it.
“Since that Unicorn petition,” he began, “the question of Toshi Ranbo’s governing has been
a topic of discussion throughout the Empire. It is a strategic military location for the whole of the
north. The fate of the city weighs heavy on my mind, and now that even my own wife...”
Toturi caught himself. He would not tell Sumiko all his fears.
“Until I return, you may act with my full authority,” he repeated. “My leaving is no secret,
but I would rather it did not become court gossip either. Keep things running smoothly, as though I
were still here.”
And better that Matsu Tsuko does not hear of it until I’ve returned.
“Thank you, Champion, it shall be done.” She paused. “May I offer some advice?”
He nodded. “Please do.”

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 “Be sure to ride in the armor of your office, or they will kill you before you reach the gates.
The Iron Crane will not hesitate to act if you approach in Lion colors.”
Does she think me so foolish as to ride in brown?
“I do not wish to appear as though I ride into battle,” he said. “I am only taking a small
company.”
“You still will not seize control, for the Empire?”
“The Emperor does not wish it,” he said, in a tone he hoped was final.
“But the Empire may require it.”
“There can be no distinction,” Toturi said, but he did not rebuke her. He did not wish for all
their conversations to end in argument. He took the hefty box in his hands and offered his seal to
her for safekeeping, though he felt the gesture spoiled by the turn the meeting had taken.
Sumiko received it graciously. No doubt the weight felt more familiar in her hands than his,
since it had been in her care after the death of his predecessor.
“Until you return,” she said.
Toturi nodded, ready to dismiss her, but she went on.
“Champion, I hope you find what you seek,” she said. “But I fear you are searching for the
perfect answer. Sometimes there is none, and you must still make a decision.”

He rode through the summer haze, sweating under the lacquered steel and leather armor of the
Emerald Champion. His horse’s hooves disturbed the dust of the road, and flies buzzed in lazy
circles around its stoic head. Soon the shape of Toshi Ranbo would appear on the horizon, a walled
city with the jagged shrine to Bishamon rising above the walls to claw the sky. Would the gates be
opened or closed at his approach?
In another life, he might have come as a Lion warrior looking for vengeance. Arasou had
died outside those gates, a casualty of war, and his death had not bought his clan a victory. Tsuko
would have Toturi retake the city for his brother’s sake, but he saw no honor in bringing war—
needless war—to Rokugan.
As the road rounded a bend, the sight of the city’s walls greeted his traveling party, five
hand-picked assistants to the Emerald Magistrates. Toshi Ranbo’s gates remained closed, the only
sign of life the birds wheeling over it like flakes of dark ash drifting on the wind. There would be
watchers on those walls, waiting to see what the Emerald Champion would do. Toturi did not

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approach the gates. Instead, he signaled for his company to wait, and he rode his horse from the road
onto what had been a battlefield.
The field had become a flowering meadow, with specks of yellow shifting in the breeze, like
tiny funeral lanterns floating on the green sea of the grasses. He reigned his horse and slid to the
ground, the only sound the shrill of the cicadas. The Crane had been most efficient at their attempts
to purify the battlefield, erasing any traces of death. They would not have neglected the rites for the
fallen. His own brother had received all due ceremonies, and he was sure Tsuko had performed her
duties to the departed as well. There should be no spirits tethered to this place.
He faced west and recited a quiet prayer for the dead, cutting the air with his fingers in the
sword mudra as they’d taught him at the monastery, to warn any unwelcome spirits to depart. The
sun was warm on his face, and it would not be long until he returned and could assure Kaede that
the dreams that disturbed her in the night were nothing more than fears.
He turned back to the city, where the gates now hung open. A company of Daidoji Iron
Warriors rode out with their banners held high, their grays and blues muted by the brighter blue of
the sky above. The last time Toturi had seen the Daidoji crest was on the day he lost his brother, the
day Hotaru slew Arasou. Now, General Daidoji Uji came to meet him personally, dressed for war.
Five riders trotted behind their commander to match the number Toturi had brought. Toturi mounted
his horse and rejoined his companions as the riders crossed the field.
Uji did not speak until they were face-to-face, and the horses still and quiet.
“Emerald Champion,” Uji said, his voice barely above a whisper, his steely gaze showing
none of the deference of his words. “Welcome to Toshi Ranbo.”
“Lord Daidoji, we have come seeking neither hostilities nor hospitality. I come to see again
the place my brother, Akodo Arasou, fell.”
Uji only nodded.
“Some shugenja have come to me voicing concerns about troubled spirits.” With the
centuries-long vacancy of the Office of the Jade Champion, heresies and sorcery fell under the
purview of his office as well, but he dared not level such dire accusations so soon.
“Our shugenja have not been troubled,” the Crane said, “but come inside, see the city and
its shrines for yourself.”

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 Toturi nodded. Without another word, Uji turned and rode back towards the gate, his guests
trailing behind him. They passed through thick walls, built solidly of stone and wood, designed to
withstand a battering. Inside, servants relieved them of their horses, but not their weapons.
“Let me take you to the shugenja, Champion Toturi,” the Iron Crane said. “Your retinue may
stay here to tend to their horses.”
It was not so much an offer as a demand, but an endurable one.
Toturi walked on with his guide through the narrow streets. The path they took was curious,
twisting and turning through the city. Crane bushi in full armor stood guard and marched on patrol,
while ashigaru sparred in a training ground. All paused to bow as he passed, and kept their eyes
down.
Uji walked in silence, his route taking them past a shrine to Hachiman, Fortune of Battle.
The arch gleamed red, freshly painted—the color of blood. Beyond it, the large shrine to Bishamon
loomed. For generations, Crane and Lion warriors alike had entered the Fortune of Strength’s
sanctuary to petition him for the fortitude to hold the city.
They passed golden komainu, built by Toturi’s clan. The garden surrounding Bishamon’s
shrine was ordered and elegant, yet it lacked the beauty of the typical Crane garden. Pine, bracken,
and medicinal plants were cultivated there by Lion and Crane in turn.
“Lord Daidoji, I would speak of worldly matters before we enter this sacred space.”
Toturi kept his eyes ahead as they stopped on the path, though Uji’s gaze lingered on him.
“You are ready for war,” observed Toturi. Again, the Crane only nodded. “The Emperor
forbids war between the Great Clans.”
“We do not seek war,” Uji said, “but we expect it.”
“The Lion have withdrawn their forces...”
“War is coming, Champion,” Uji said. “We are ready, and that is no crime.”

The sun was sinking as they rode out of the city. The horses had been rubbed down and watered,
and now they trotted with fresh vigor. Someone was watching him, but he did not look back to the
walls. His eyes found the forest where he had waited to join his brother’s troops that day they tried
to take the city, tall cedars swaying in the wind. Ankle-deep mist lay upon the ground, and it clung
to those trees, wreathing them, hazy and ghostlike in the growing darkness.

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 For a moment, the failing light seemed to glint off a single eye watching him from the trees.
Then it was gone. There were no restless spirits here; the Crane shugenja had insisted on that. There
were only memories, his brother’s face with one eye glazed, one transfixed by the arrow that slew
him. Toturi would carry that image with him forever, though the sound of Arasou’s voice might
fade from his mind. Still, he could almost hear it now.
Like Tsuko, Arasou would see only one path, and call for vengeance.
They were almost out of sight of the city. Another glint in the trees; it was not merely a
memory. Someone watched them.
Someone from the city? Or something else?
Toturi slowed his horse to a walk, and one of his companions moved to ride beside him,
while the others hung back.
“Did you see it, Kāgi-san?” Toturi asked.
The yoriki’s nod was barely perceptible.
“Daidoji?”
“No. A scout. Not from the city.”
A chill dread settled inside him that had nothing to do with the coming dusk and possibility
of wandering spirits. Was an army marching on the city already?
“Find out whose,” Toturi said.
Kāgi slipped from his horse, leaving the beast trotting riderless as the samurai ran swiftly
and silently into the trees. No scout or spy would evade Kitsuki Kāgi, an adopted Dragon who had
learned their Method. It was only a matter of time before the young man was named a fully fledged
Emerald Magistrate in his own right.
Toturi and his retinue rode on, as though nothing had occurred. He heard no marching feet,
no creaking armor but their own, yet he expected each bend in the road to reveal a host of bushi on
their way to Toshi Ranbo; what would he say to them?
And if it was an army, how were he and five samurai going to walk out of this alive? Could
they rely on honor to protect them from a general ambitious enough to tempt a war?
Had Tsuko persuaded his generals to reclaim it? Did the Unicorn seek it as a trophy in a war
against the Lion? Had the desperation of the Crab led them to wage war for jade? And surely the
Phoenix would never forsake their pacifist ideals and force their way into the city in search of
ghosts...

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 Until Kāgi returned, these thoughts were but fears, useless to a samurai. Toturi focused on
his breath and the rhythm of the horse beneath him.
Perhaps Uji had been right to prepare for war; perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps there would
be new ghosts made upon that battlefield before long.

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His father used to say that it wasn’t wise to “gamble as the dice fell,” but they were cast now, so
there was no longer any room for doubt. From this moment onward, his heart and mind must be in
accord. Isawa Tadaka steeled himself and pushed the door aside.
“Tadaka!” Shiba Tetsu rose from his cushion with a bright grin. In the teahouse’s muted
light, the crest of the Order of Chikai glowed on his crimson robes.
Tadaka returned the smile. “You are a sight for sore eyes, Tetsu-san.”
“I’m just glad to see you are in one piece. You take such needless risks these days!”
Tadaka shrugged. “The fruit is at the end of the branch.”
They sat before a short. lacquered table, Tetsu setting his iron kettle on a bed of hot coals
and readying his ladle and whisks. “How is your recovery going?”
“As well as can be expected.” Tadaka resisted the urge to touch his bandaged side. “Garanto
Province was... humbling.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Tetsu, pouring fresh water into the kettle. “How did you find the
Kaito?”
“Charming, but naïve.”
He laughed at that. “Such is to be expected when one spends one’s whole life in the
mountains, cut off from the outside world.” He flashed a look Tadaka’s way. “But then, you
wouldn’t know anything about that, right?”
“I came down for festivals.” A pause. “Sometimes.”
Tetsu grinned and readied two cups.

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 “Even so,” Tadaka continued, “I believe they are an underutilized resource for the clan. It is
time they took a more active role in Phoenix affairs.”
Tetsu’s joviality faded. “And... Tsukune-sama? How does she fare?”
Tsukune standing injured on the lip of a stone well. Her sword in her weakened grip.
“Tsukune!”
Tadaka closed his eyes. “It is in the hands of the Fortunes.”
The afternoon light seeped in through the cracks in the wall. Neither spoke for some time.
A habit formed over the last month brought Tadaka’s fingers to where his straw amulet
should have been, and his stomach knotted. Right—he’d left it outside. It was strange how leaving
behind something one was accustomed to carrying, no matter how small, could make one feel
emptier.
“I should have gone,” Tetsu said suddenly. “She was not ready.”
Normally, the statement would have been presumptuous, insulting. By saying this, Tetsu
implied that he would have succeeded where Tsukune had failed, that if he had gone instead, he
would have talked sense into Tadaka and avoided the entire affair. He’d suggested, inadvertently,
that Tadaka’s stubbornness, his refusal to listen to the Phoenix Clan Champion, was to blame.
Tadaka couldn’t disagree.
“None of us knew what awaited at Cliffside Shrine.” Tadaka’s chest tightened. “Not even
I.”
“Even so,” Tetsu insisted, “for her to risk the leadership of the clan, to act so hastily...”
“Give her some credit,” Tadaka said, voice cracking. “I am only here now because of her.”
And she is only there now because of me.
Tetsu avoided his gaze, and only then did Tadaka realize he was wearing his guilt openly.
He recomposed himself in the span of an exhaled breath. “Your training served her well,” he
remarked. “Her swordplay has improved, at least to my eye.”
“Would that I could do more,” Tetsu whispered. The kettle whistled, and he moved to take
it from the coals.
Now was the time. Tadaka took one last deep breath. “Perhaps you could.”
Tetsu paused. Although he could not see his face, Tadaka imagined his practiced stoicism
overtaking his features, a plain look that betrayed nothing.

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 “Your skills are wasted day after day in this shrine,” Tadaka continued. “You could rise
much higher than this. I could see to it.”
“Is that so?”
“You know what I am going to ask.”
Slowly Tetsu turned, his mouth twitching. “I suspect I do.”
Tadaka placed a scroll on the table. It was stamped with the crest of the Council of Elemental
Masters. “I need a second for the duel,” he said.
Tetsu did not look at it. “I will put a list of recommendations together for you this evening.
Many of my students would suit the task.”
“I need you, Tetsu-san.” He folded his arms, watching the shadows between the cracks of
light in the wall. “Rujo will have my father as his second. That is just the sort of move he would
make. He seeks to imbalance me, and should it come to that, the Master of Void’s word is heavy.
But you have officiated at five duels and been in three yourself. None would question your
judgment, nor your keen eye. Please, Tetsu. There is no one else.”
Tetsu divided one scoop of matcha powder between the cups. Silence prevailed.
“I’d expected you to say yes by now,” Tadaka joked.
He poured hot water into the cup and stirred the grassy-green liquid with a whisk.
Tadaka searched his friend’s face. “Perhaps you are thinking that if I lose, the council will
remember whose side you supported. I can appreciate that. I have heard the rumors as well. No one
thinks I can best Master Rujo.” Slowly, he made a fist. “But I won’t lose, Tetsu. It is not my destiny
to lose. For the sake of the Phoenix, I must win.”
At last Tetsu looked at his friend with sad eyes. “I believe you can win. That has nothing to
do with this. We are friends, Tadaka. I won’t help you destroy yourself.”
The reply stunned him. He shook his head. “It is not what you think.”
Tetsu rose. “Are you invoking the Promise?”
Tadaka paused.
At the dawn of the Empire, in its darkest moment, Shinsei went to Isawa for aid. Only Isawa
had the knowledge to implement Shinsei’s plan, and only he had the skill to forever banish a fallen
god. Without him, a war would be lost, and the Empire would fall into darkness. But to do this
would cost Isawa everything. He would have to lay down his life—and the lives of countless

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kinsfolk and children from his tribe—upon the altar of their greatest enemy. To do so was
unthinkable, and so he refused.
Then the Kami Shiba, a god made mortal, bent his knee to Isawa. He promised that his line
would forever serve Isawa’s, if only Isawa would follow Shinsei. Isawa agreed.
To invoke the Promise is to invoke the covenant between Shiba and Isawa, a promise carried
across generations. It is the right of any who carry Isawa’s name. Regardless of differences in social
status or personal standing, or even the nature of the request itself, when an Isawa invokes the
Promise to a Shiba, that Shiba must comply. To do otherwise is to lose considerable face in the clan.
Tadaka almost did it. It was there, on his lips, ready to be spoken. He could make Tetsu
obey. He knew that if he did, his friend would not refuse. It was the only way. All he had to do was
speak it.
But if he did, Tetsu would never forgive him. And that cost was too high.
“I am only asking, Tetsu. As a friend. I would consider it a favor, nothing more.”
Tetsu pushed a steaming teacup before Tadaka and smiled. “My friend, I would consider it
a favor if you didn’t ask.”

Tadaka’s door was already open when he arrived. His sensei’s shadow lay unfurled in the hall; he
had spotted it well before he saw Rujo’s scowl and the weathered scroll case in his hands.
“Where did you find this?” Rujo asked.
It had come from his family library, a subterranean chamber not even the servants seemed
to know about. “You have no right to go through my things,” Tadaka murmured.
Rujo’s scowl deepened. “I knew it. Those techniques you carelessly deployed—you did not
learn them from me!” He shook the scroll case accusingly. “They came from here: the writings of
a disgraced madman!”
Tadaka flinched. “They were written in his youth,” he insisted. “They relate to purification
of the elements, no different than the ways of the Kuni! Read them yourself !”
“That is beside the point!” Rujo thundered. “This preoccupation with dark matters is what
concerns me! And I must act on my concerns, even if it pains me to do so.”
Rujo had shifted his position, tilting so that his right side, including the arm that held the
case, was painted in the glow of the coal box set into the floor.
Rujo intended to destroy it.

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 Holding Rujo’s gaze, Tadaka wormed his prayer beads from his wrist and into his hand.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered.
“Perhaps. But then, I don’t need to.” With a flick of his wrist, he cast it to the flames.
Tadaka struggled back tears as his master towered above him, leaning close until his
cracked and baleful face was all the young man could see. “Thank your father the next time you see
him. He is the only reason you are still my student.”
And then he was gone.
Tadaka waited several moments before rushing to the coal box. Only then did he dare to see
if his offering had been accepted. The scroll case, ancient and dry, was already crumbling away—
but the paper within was untouched. Gratefully he retrieved the scroll, whispering his thanks to the
kami of the coal box for preserving it. Ignoring the line of blood trickling from the corner of his
mouth, he laid the scroll on the table and looked for damage. Having only one copy was too risky;
he would have to transcribe it as soon as possible.
After all Tadaka had given to his master, after he’d held his tongue when his own research
and insights appeared in his master’s latest texts, Rujo still had no respect for his student. He had
not even noticed when Tadaka had invoked the kami right in front of him. How great could the
Master of Earth be, then?
And for that matter, what could the old fool do to stop him?

The straw amulet still hung from the lowest bough of the ancient oak. Tadaka freed it and tested its
weight. Empty, but for the pinch of agar dust still inside. The kodama—the tree spirit—had declined
his offering.
Tadaka touched his forehead to the tree’s trunk and rehung the amulet. “So be it,” he
whispered. “If not in exchange for a favor, then please accept it as a token of my respect.”
A green leaf, fresh and alive, drifted down and grazed his shoulder. Tadaka clapped twice
and bowed. Then he removed the straw ornament from the branch again.
Perhaps there was something wrong with the amulet? He gave it another inspection. No, he
had not made any mistakes. The ribbon wove itself into the straw just so, the dangling bell glinting
and enticing. It was a worthy temporary home for any willing spirit. The problem, then, was the
willing part.
Nine days. Not much time left.

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 Returning the amulet around his neck, Tadaka tried to ignore his sinking feeling. He held
nothing against Tetsu, but his friend’s declination combined with these recent difficulties did not
bode well. Yet there was still a part of him that urged him forward, that insisted it was not his destiny
to fail here. He needed only to keep looking, keep trying. The solution would come when the
elements aligned...
His ears popped. He froze. The sounds of the Isawa Woodlands returned like the reflection
on a rippling pond. What had caused that sensation?
A short distance away stood a tiny stone lantern, no taller than his ankle. It was carpeted in
moss, blending in with the surrounding brush, its firebox matted with leaves and long unused.
Could it be?
He knelt beside it, removing his cone-shaped hat and lowering his head. “Forgive me,” he
whispered, “I did not see you there.” Reaching into his obi, he withdrew a cone of incense and one
of his sulfur matches. He lit the cone and let it weave thick cobwebs of smoke throughout the
lantern’s firebox.
It was low at first, so soft he could barely feel it. A gentle rumble, growing quickly: a
reverberating bass like the lowest note of the koto plucked and left to echo in the hollow of his chest.
Tadaka smiled. “You’re awake.” Taking his prayer beads, he settled into the lotus position.
“Tell me your story, ancient one.”
The kami do not speak with words. Not as humans know them, at least. Emotion, sensations,
feelings are their language. This is why a shugenja’s emotions can elicit unintended reactions; the
interpretation of feelings goes both ways. In order to commune, a shugenja has to allow themself to
feel what the kami is saying, relying on the heart to translate.
Tadaka felt as though he were sitting at the foot of a massive taiko drum thundering bluntly
through his body. There came an emotion for which there existed no human word; he experienced
it as a musty smell he could also taste, emanating from the pit of his belly, as if something were
fermenting in his gut.
He laid his palm against the lantern’s surface. Thoughts filled his mind, but they came not
from within him. “You were here long before this kodama’s tree. In time, it cast you in shade.” He
looked up at the oak canopy. It obscured the sky; even now it stole the lantern kami’s light. “You’ve
longed to see the sun again ever since, haven’t you?”
It was as though the stones beneath his seat had split in two.

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 It wanted him to tear down the tree. Tadaka considered. A kami of the type of stone from
which the lantern had been made, and especially of this age, would be a powerful ally in what would
come next. But he couldn’t destroy the tree. It may have wronged the kami, but it still had a right to
life, and its removal would disrupt the balance of this place.
“Forgive me, ancient one, but I cannot do as you ask. However, I will make you another
deal.” He pinched another offering of agar dust into his straw amulet. “If you lend me your aid, I
will erect a shrine for you on a mountain peak, and you will have all the sun you wish!”
Nothing.
Tadaka lowered his eyes. “That is not enough? You need something more?”
All things are composed of the elements. The human body is no exception. Tadaka knew his
offering would have to be great indeed. And he knew none greater than his own earth.
He’d given it before. For this, he could spare a little more.
“Very well,” he whispered, and he recalled his ancestor’s teachings.

Tadaka wiped a single line of blood from the corner of his lips. Like a chipped tooth, he could feel
the space in him that was now empty. He rose shakily. The straw amulet had become heavy, as if
filled with stone.
Tadaka lowered his head. “Thank you, ancient kami.”
At his feet, the lantern was dull and empty.

The dueling grounds were a wide chalk circle in the Dragon Heart Plains. No one would disturb the
proceedings there. Tadaka whispered above the knee-high stack of stones just within the border of
the arena. The wind tugged at the tiny shrine’s orb-shaped lantern and the thin straw rope encircling
it.
On the opposite end of the circle was Rujo’s shrine, a komainu statue. The sitting lion-dog
was adorned with bells and two straw ropes, and the smoothness and detail of the stone just showed
that the Master of Earth had more time, more resources.
Isawa Rujo laid his hand on the statue’s head, as if to pat it. The wind tugged at his elaborate
robes and swept through his wild, grey-streaked hair.
What manner of kami has he charmed for this demonstration?

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 “Let the duel commence,” came the voice of the judge. Asako Togama had been wise long
before he was old, officiating many such matters on behalf of the Phoenix. As the daimyō of another
Phoenix Clan family, he would be impartial to the proceedings. And yet, Togama knew Rujo much
better than he did Tadaka. Would experience favor experience in this matter?
Tadaka approached and bowed to the crowd of witnesses. Due respect paid, he then faced
his sensei. Anger crept into his curling fists, but he returned his master’s bow regardless.
Rujo’s voice was filled with gravel. “It has been some time, Tadaka-san.”
“Not enough, it seems.” He looked pointedly at the empty space where Rujo’s second should
have stood. “I see my father could not come.”
“I did not ask him. I would never anguish him so.” Rujo turned serious. “And you are without
second as well, I see.”
“I do not require one. There will be no doubt as to the victor when this is done.”
“As you say,” Rujo replied.
Togama held up his hands. “This duel will resolve the matter of honor between the Master
of Earth, Isawa Rujo, and the Scion of Earth, Isawa Tadaka.” He kept his words clinical and plain,
omitting honorifics to avoid the appearance of partiality. “Enshrine your kami!”
Reverently, Tadaka lowered his straw amulet into the cairn. The kami had grown stronger
over the past week, the straw turning green in places, tiny buds sprouting along the formerly dry
stalks. Tadaka placed a butterbur leaf on the top to complete the enshrinement, stepping away with
two claps. Then, he faced Rujo.
All had led to this moment. He would hold nothing back.
Togama continued. “This duel is complete when two spirits dwell within a single shrine, or
when one side yields to the other. May the Heavens favor the rightful party.” He abruptly sat, as did
the dozen other witnesses. “You may begin.”
“Wait.” Rujo held out his hand and stepped forward. “A moment, first.”
Tadaka narrowed his eyes. The Elemental Master approached, his arms outstretched in an
entreating gesture.
“Tadaka, this has gone far enough. Surely after your ordeal at Cliffside Shrine, you see the
folly of this path. If we continue, you will lose, and that defeat will be a shadow you drag for the
rest of your days. However, if you recant your petition now and accept the judgment of the

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council...” Rujo’s eyes softened. “...Then I will forgive this indiscretion and consider the matter
settled. What say you?”
His words seemed sincere—and they were more than many who had slighted the Masters
had been offered.
“How generous,” Tadaka replied. “All I need do is abandon my destiny, and all can return
to how it was. Me, supplying you with my research and insights, and you, claiming them as your
own. But then, the victories of the student belong to his sensei; isn’t that true?”
Where he’d expected to see the contorting face of anger, Tadaka saw only disappointment.
“Yes. And also his failures,” said Rujo.
Tadaka moved first. He darted forward, prayer beads in hand, and focused on Rujo’s shrine.
Some life flickered within the motionless stone, but he could not sense what it was. Without
knowing the nature of the enshrined spirit, he could never coax it out. But Rujo would take a
conservative approach. He always did. There was time to—
Rujo broke an offering sachet against the ground and shouted a word of power. The earth
spat forth a spinning boulder, hurling it toward Tadaka’s shrine.
Jerking back, Tadaka slapped a holy paper talisman against the ground. It disintegrated in
his palm. A wall of stone jutted up in front of his cairn. The boulder broke against it with a
thunderclap, the sound of splitting rock deafening the clearing. Chunks scattered across the arena,
narrowly missing the startled onlookers.
Behind the thin veil of dust, Rujo’s eyes flashed with amusement. Tadaka gritted his teeth.
Destroying one shrine would leave nowhere else for the kami to go except for the other’s. Rujo had
opted for the direct approach.
Fine.
Tadaka unsheathed a scroll from his cache and unfurled it. Rujo’s voice rose again, but
Tadaka spoke quickly, offering a handful of salt as the words tumbled from his lips in an avalanche.
The kami responded to his anger. The air around his scroll crystallized, and the scroll became the
handle of a massive stone tetsubō. A cry erupted from Tadaka’s chest as he swung the club and
hurled himself at the komainu statue.
Rujo made a fist above his head. Cold hands gripped Tadaka’s feet. The earth yanked his
legs, sinking him up to his waist in impacted soil.

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 Animal panic stiffened his limbs and jerked his back, but Tadaka forced himself to breathe,
whispering an om with each inward breath. If he panicked now, the kami would react unpredictably.
He swung the stone club in tight arcs above his head, hurling it at the komainu.
Rujo clapped his hands, unleashing a cloud of sandy dust.
Jagged stone erupted from the earth, spiking the tetsubō. It broke into dozens of glittering
shards. Chunks of stone fell from the sky. Cracks of splintering rock mingled with the startled yelps
of the onlookers, some barely managing to duck out of the way of an errant spinning stone. Rujo
shielded his face from bouncing pebbles with a silk sleeve.
Surely Togama would interfere now that the duel had progressed to this point. But as the
onlookers ducked to avoid debris, the Asako daimyō merely watched, impassive, displaying no hint
of concern for his own safety.
Very well. Onward, then.
Tadaka pushed against the ground. He was stuck in a vise grip, but he could feel the kami
swarming within the earth, the vibrations from their movements reverberating in his inner ear. The
right offering, the proper humility, and he could convince them to let him go.
From his robes, the chanting Rujo drew a rod of grey agarwood.
Ice ran in Tadaka’s veins. An offering of that magnitude was fit only for a very ancient kami.
With a loud snap of breaking stone, the komainu statue ripped itself from its foundation, darting
forward on four legs and panting like a hungry beast.
So that was Rujo’s game. He had planned this all along.
The stone lion-dog thundered across the area, heading for his cairn. The animated statue
would easily crush it. Across the arena, Rujo watched with crossed arms and a satisfied smile.
Tadaka’s heart beat in his ears. His vision blurred. His muscles tightened, and his jaw
clamped shut. His fingers curled around a handful of soil.
No. I will not lose here. Not to Rujo, that smarmy, odious...
Tadaka pulled a single thread of budded straw from his sleeve.
Oh ancient one, I invoke our deal!
Stones cascaded from the sky in a torrent, but the swath was wide, missing the komainu by
feet. They carved a deep trench, flying at Rujo. The Elemental Master watched the hailstorm with
eerie calm. The crowd gasped. Tadaka’s heart froze; due to his anger, the kami had misunderstood
his command.

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 The ground ruptured at Rujo’s feet. A column of rock cast him up, the cascading stones
smashing harmlessly against the pedestal beneath him. An odd sense of relief washed over Tadaka
as he swung his gaze to the animated statue. The stone lion-dog gathered speed as it circled the
arena. Its momentum was more than enough to smash Tadaka’s cairn to pieces.
Tadaka cursed himself. Fool! You lacked focus, and now you are undone!
The earth around him weakened; the grip released. He blinked. Had his curse offended the
kami holding him in place? Or had his anger, misunderstood by the kami, frightened them away?
The komainu leapt. With a wordless cry, Tadaka wrenched himself from the ground. There
was only time to hurl himself into the statue’s path before the world went black.
Tadaka came to on the ground. He’d been out for only a moment. He felt as though his ribs
were made of shattered glass. Each breath was agony. He was at the paws of the komainu, which
panted above him. Rolling to his back, he looked up into the face of the Master of Earth. In Rujo’s
hand swung a straw amulet, green and laden with fronds.
The world held still. In Rujo’s other hand rested an offering of incense. One gesture, one
spoken word, and the lion-dog shrine would boast not one kami, but two. Mere moments, and it
would be over. Tadaka had lost.
Yet the incantation did not leave Rujo’s lips. Instead, he met his former student’s eyes. “Do
you see now, Tadaka? Do you finally realize where your pride has taken you?”
A sharp pain lanced through his ribs, but Tadaka ignored it. He kept his voice calm. “I am
precisely where the Fortunes will me to be. It is not my destiny to lose today.”
Rujo spoke through his teeth. “Still stubborn! You would lose everything—everything—
over a denied petition and your own ego?”
“No,” Tadaka replied. “But I would for our clan’s future.”
Rujo hesitated. The air was dense with his uncertainty and the crystallized moment.
“I may have been only a child when Father took us to Crab lands, but I remember what I saw
there. Considering what the Kuni sacrifice to hold back that darkness, how far they are willing to
go...” His gaze fell heavily upon Rujo’s face. “How could the greatest shugenja in the Empire do
any less?”
Rujo scoffed. “That is their duty. Not ours.” But his façade was cracking. Mention of the
Kuni had caused his face to pale, his fists to curl, to shake...

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 Tadaka moved to one knee. “You’re wrong. The Fortunes made us the wardens of the
Empire’s spirit. We cannot ignore the signs. The elemental imbalance, the increased Shadowlands
attacks, the shifting of the night stars... something is coming. It will come from the south. From the
Pit. And whatever it is, you know the Phoenix are not prepared!”
“Then let us send someone else!”
All fell silent at Rujo’s outburst. Even the crickets were soundless.
“We’ll send another,” he continued. Pain flickered across his weathered features. “But not
you, Tadaka. There is darkness in your heart, as there is in all who share our bloodline. I will not
lose my student to that darkness. Not like what happened to our ancestor.”
Audible gasps. Even Togama looked away. Tadaka’s fingers curled into a tight fist. So that
was why Rujo had treated him this way. All these years, when he looked at Tadaka, he saw only
their family’s shame. Their fallen ancestor, a name none dared speak. Isawa Akuma.
“The shadow his actions cast over our clan remains to this day. In a thousand years, his
shame will still haunt our family. I knew when I found you with his scrolls that you were headed on
the same dark path! I know you have heard his voice! That is why I spoke against your research. I
knew that if you were allowed to pursue it, you would share his fate.”
“I am not like him,” Tadaka whispered.
“You think your insights are unique?” Rujo shook his head. “Every Scion of Earth has felt
this temptation, all the way back to the dawn of the Empire and Isawa’s son himself!” He pressed
his hand against his chest, wrinkling the emblem of the Earth Master. “I was once where you are! I
too heard the Shadowlands’ call and believed, for a time, that I could tame it! But I was wise enough
to recognize it as hubris. I left my research and walked away.”
Tadaka’s stony expression faded.
“Now I am asking you to do the same.” Rujo lowered the amulet and extended his hand. “It
need not end this way. Another may pick up where you left off, and you may yet serve the Phoenix.
But you must let it go, Tadaka. It is not for you.”
For a long time, no one moved.
At last, Tadaka whispered. “You were researching it as well?”
Rujo nodded.
“You had the chance to equip the Phoenix against the darkness.” His words were sharp,
accusing. “And you turned away?”

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 Rujo was taken aback. “I chose to remain pure, for the sake of the Phoenix!”
“Then you failed your duty.”
The Earth Master paled. His hand dropped. “Y... you dare!?”
Tadaka stood, slowly, one straightened vertebra at a time. Pain shot through his shaking leg,
but he ignored it. “Soil that is too pure bares no fruit. Water that is too pure has no fish. Willing
ignorance of what threatens us is not virtuous, Rujo-sama. It is the job of the Earth Master, of the
entire council, to know the nature of the shadows so that they might be combated.” He was at his
full height and looking down at his former teacher. His heart and mind were in perfect accord.
“When you turned away, it was not virtue, but cowardice. You avoided the shadows because you
feared you would succumb to the call. It was because you were afraid.” He held his arms to his
sides, like unfurled wings. “I trust in the Fortunes. I trust in the kami. I have nothing to fear. And I
will not fail.”
A tear ran down Rujo’s cheek. “Forgive me, Ujina-dono.” He raised Tadaka’s amulet.
The moment of Rujo’s victory was not yet here. There was only this moment. Tadaka did
not hesitate. He offered the only thing he knew the kami would want more than Rujo’s offering, as
well as the strength to claim it.
The amulet waved weightless in the breeze, dry and empty. Rujo’s jaw dropped. The hairs
on Tadaka’s arms stood straight as he extended his hands. He could feel the resting static in the soil,
seeds desperate to be released. He finally knew from whence Rujo’s kami had come. What it would
want. One final time he met Rujo’s stunned eyes. “Let me teach you something.”
He brushed his hands together.
The electric blast coated the area in sheet white. There was nothing but the rolling thunder.
Tadaka’s sight finally returned, the colors of the bleached world bleeding back into view.
The air was stale and smelled of ozone. His master’s fallen body lay sprawled at his feet. Rujo
coughed and rolled to his side. The komainu shrine was headless. Beyond, Tadaka’s cairn was
covered in moss and coated with sunset glow. Rujo’s kami had come from a mountain. It yearned
but for the latent static in the ground to be released that it might touch the heavens. Tadaka needed
only offer it the strength of his own earth to do so.
“Tadaka is the victor,” Togama announced. His voice was shaking. Only now did Tadaka
realize the old man’s face was pale, and all witnesses stared at at Tadaka in open horror.
Rujo rasped. “Tadaka... What have you done?”

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When he’d hastily offered his own earth to Rujo’s kami and his own, he had not cared from where
they would take it. Victory was all that had concerned him. Now, weeks later, Tadaka still winced
at his new face in the mirror. Scarred flesh twisted around the gaping hole where his cheek had been,
exposing his teeth and the bone of his jaw. Clove oil soothed the pain. A balm smoothed the wrinkles
of the ruined flesh. But no medicine would restore his features. This wound would never heal.
The door slid open without permission. Tadaka spun. A youth in Shiba trappings froze,
paling. “A—a thousand pardons!” he managed, his wide eyes never leaving Tadaka’s ruined face.
“It’s all right, Yasuhide-san.” Tadaka turned back to the mirror and applied a layer of
makeup beneath his eye. “You have news?”
Yasuhide swallowed. “Hai. Master Ru—” He stopped, then began again. “The rōnin
formerly known as ‘Rujo’ has left Nikesake. He is headed toward the Castle of the Dragonfly and
the lands of the Dragon.” A pause. “Give the word, and the Sesai family will follow.”
There is a darkness within you, Tadaka.
“Leave him be,” Tadaka replied. “I wish him good fortune, wherever he goes.”
His new yōjimbō shifted. On his kimono, the emblem of the Order of Chikai showed beside
that of the Sesai vassal family of the Shiba. “A former Elemental Master is a powerful enemy.” To
leave alive, Yasuhide’s eyes seemed to add.
“He is not my enemy. In truth, I am grateful to him. The old man finally taught me
something.”
“Oh?”
Tadaka smirked as he sat back on his cushion. “I acted too hastily. I utilized my ancestor’s
insights without fully comprehending them. That was foolish. I will not do so again.”
“Then you are reconsidering renewing your proposal?”
“To the contrary. Because I didn’t understand what I’d traded, I suffered this malady. Rujo
should have won, but because he didn’t understand me, he lost. If anything, the duel proved me right
as well.” As he spoke, he drew a small cloth and wrapped it around the lower half of his face,
concealing his scars behind the thin silk. “If we do not understand the darkness, we won’t be
prepared to face it.”
Tadaka rose, smoothing the robes of his former master. His palms grazed the silver crest of
the Master of Earth. Soon he would be in Crab lands, exactly where he was supposed to be.

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 Ignorance is the root of suffering, not knowledge. But even knowledge can be deployed with
ignorance. Do not forget this, Tadaka-san. Do not make my mistake.
“I won’t,” Tadaka whispered.
Beneath the makeup and the shade from his conical hat, the spider-web scarring around his
eye was barely visible. If he’d known what his actions would cost him, where the path would lead,
perhaps he would have sought another way. But regret was a sin. A bell could not be unrung.
Forward steps were how one learned.
And repentance did not come first.

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Phoenix Clan Novella should be read here. Please go to
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/legend-of-the-five-rings-fiction/products/sword-and-
spirits/ to purchase the novella.

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The calm green-blue waves seemed to mock her, and though there was not a cloud in the sky,
Asahina Maeko felt a gray cloud hanging over her. The shugenja sighed deeply and looked over the
side of the Loyal Duck, meandering its way from Lonely Shore, across the water and back to the
City of the Cold Wind. As boring as this trip has been, she reflected, I am not at all eager to get
back home. The placid seas and empty skies boded ill for finding the mysterious storms that brought
her out here to begin with, and she would return to her lord a failure.
The young woman sighed, whirling a little tempest upon her palm. It was her close
connection to the kami of the air that made her immediately suspicious of all the reports claiming
ships at sea had been lost to storms. Stories abounded of sudden squalls that rose up like angry
demons from the ocean; the lucky crews were those that made it to their lifeboats and washed up on
shore with tales to tell, while the unfortunate ones washed up dead among the wreckage or were lost
beneath the waves. It seemed too convenient that so many small storms could appear without
threatening the shore, but after the disastrous typhoon a few years ago, no Crane official seemed
interested in looking into the matter-that or they were too occupied with the conflict against the Lion
in the north to care.
Maeko, however, was not so easily put off—especially after her cousin Kenji was named
among the missing. She was so relentless in her requests to see ship schedules and shipment
information that the daughter of the daimyō intervened on her behalf. Although not highly ranked
within the family, Maeko was granted greater respect by the strength of her devotion to, and esteem
among, the kami. So Lady Takako granted her wish: a small stipend, a bodyguard, and passage to
Lonely Shore City to determine the truth of the rumors.

247
 What she didn’t expect was how boring the trip on the Loyal Duck—named for an insipid
children’s tale about a young emperor’s favorite pet—was going to be. The sailors ignored her, and
even the yōjimbō ordered to accompany Maeko remained aloof. She had loudly declared that she
expected to be attacked all the way to their destination, their craft laden with barrels of pitch, and
yet they had arrived at the busy port without incident.
Frustrated at her failure and determined not to be proven wrong, Maeko spent every last
koku she'd been given to procure trade goods of her own, to make certain that the Loyal Duck rode
low in the water, appearing to be heavily weighed down with supplies. The merchants protested at
the addition. and at first refused to take the goods on board, finally settling on the compromise of
lashing them to the deck under oilcloths, to be easily kicked overboard if need be. She’d set off from
the trade port confident in her plan... only to have that confidence ebb away the closer they grew to
home.
Shouts from the lookout shook her like a thunderclap. “Storm! Storm sighted!”
Maeko turned toward the captain, who looked stricken. “In this weather? Where?” he called
back.
“Southerly. and gaining fast! Fortunes save us, very fast! I’ve never seen its like!”
The captain's face took on an almost theatrical grimace, and he snapped to attention. “All
hands! Prepare the lifeboats! If we can’t outrun it, we’re not ending up a cautionary tale!”
Maeko gasped, shaking her head wildly. “No, no, captain, you must not run! This is what
we’ve been waiting for, the proof I need!”
He snorted at her in disdain. “Proof of what? Piracy? In a gale? No, you do what you want,
shugenja. My duty to you ends when my crew is in danger. You and your bodyguard are on your
own.”
Maeko stood awkwardly to one side as the sailors rushed around her, preparing for the worst,
and she watched as the storm moved forward inexorably, dark clouds boiling. The wind tugged at
her clothes, and around her the sailors had begun to babble in fear, clustering near the sides of the
Loyal Duck and struggling with the lines that held the lifeboats. Maeko tried to shout at them to
wait, that she wasn't sure—about any of this, but she was hardly audible over the shriek of the wind.
Her heart fluttered in her chest as she tried to focus.
What if I’m wrong? She stared at the approaching storm, angry and fearsome, and swallowed
hard. But I am so deep in madness already, I might as well follow its path!

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 Abandoning her protector, Maeko took off in a run aft, pale blue robes flapping around her,
and clambered up the railing of the ship’s stern. Half-closing her eyes, she reached out an arm and
waved her hand as if clearing dew from a leaf. “Kaze-no-Kami, Lord of the Winds, hear my prayer!
I shall provide whatever boon you ask of me, if only you help me now!”
A great blast of wind bellowed forth from the young shugenja’s gesture, slamming into the
oncoming storm. The thunderheads dissipated, and there was a moment of stillness between the
fading of the dark clouds and the full understanding of what lay behind it: an approaching ship,
rigged with black sails, its bow filled with heavily armed sailors-each of them with a teal sash at
their waist.
The breath drained From Maeko’s lungs like water from a broken jug. I never thought I
would be so mad at myself for being right.
“Mantis!” screamed one of the sailors behind her, shattering the sudden calm. “Pirates!
They’re going to kill us all!”
Maeko reflexively threw herself to the deck as a hurricane of boarding hooks came barreling
toward her, landing with a horrifying chorus of thunks on the deck and an awful harmony of their
lines being pulled taut. She stood, shaking, as her guardian pushed past the sailors and ran to the
rear of the ship. A hand grabbed her arm, and she looked with sudden shock into the face of the
captain, whose expression was a strange combination of respect and irritation.
“You did enough, girl,” he harrumphed. “Get back and let the warriors handle this!”
Maeko opened her mouth to form an indignant reply but was cut off by her own yelp of
surprise as her guard pushed her roughly backwards, and sailors took her arms and pulled her toward
safety. In shock, she saw the first sets of Mantis pirates heave themselves onto the deck, climbing
along the ropes that tethered the ships to one another. One of the Crane warriors raised a bow and
fired an arrow true, sending a Mantis sailor into the waves below. Another attempted to pry a
boarding hook loose from where it had dug deep into the wood of the railing, and fell over dead
with a knife in her throat. Shouts and screams rose as Maeko crouched, pinioned, and she watched
Crane after Crane fall.
A rage spilled into Maeko’s heart. I cannot let violence be wrought against the people who
sought only to aid me. She stood, her robes rippling around her, and walked forward, the yells of the
merchants once again being consumed by wind. I am Asahina Maeko, beloved of the kami, and I
will not let these pirates harm anyone!

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 Maeko, eyes half-closed, made a sudden slashing motion, eliciting a chorus of yells as one
of the boarding lines split, sliced cleanly in half. Another motion, and a second line fell away,
depositing the advancing Mantis into the froth of the waves below. She broke into a run, pale eyes
intense, then spun around, palms open, rippling the air in front of her—and the remaining lines
snapped as if caught in a typhoon, throwing their passengers free. A few turns of her hands, and the
Mantis pirates standing too close to the railing yelped in surprise as they were yanked overboard.
Seeing their chance, the Crane guards hacked apart the other lines, and finished off the remaining
Mantis sailors with exhausted efficiency.
Maeko’s eyes fluttered back open to a strange sound, and a slow smile began to cross her
face as she realized her shipmates were cheering for her. This might not end up so badly after a—
Cheers suddenly cut off as a figure slammed into the deck, rocking the ship with a massive
shockwave. Maeko tried to call the wind to form a barrier to protect them, but it was not enough—
the guards at the rear of the ship who had not been blown overboard by the blast had been slammed
into the sides of the boat, and lay motionless against the railing.
The figure stood slowly: an older woman, perhaps the age of Maeko's own mother, dark of
skin and eye and clad in teal linen robes. She leisurely rolled her head on her neck a moment before
giving Maeko a measuring look that made the young woman feel judged by an instructor—and
found wanting.
“Ain’t you a clever little bird,” the woman chuckled, her accent thick with the Islands of Silk
and Spice. “Fair amount of power in you, too, seems like.”
Maeko bristled at the woman’s tone. “I am Asahina Maeko, sworn to the Crane, and this
ship is under my protection. Leave now, or suffer the consequences!”
The woman smiled approvingly. “The name’s Kudaka, tenkinja to the Mantis Clan, priestess
of tempests and tides, disciple of Suiten. I’ve always wanted to test my powers against your family.”
Her smile grew predatory. “So let’s see which of us are more favored by the kami, shall we?”
Maeko nodded, which turned into a surprised yelp as she somersaulted backwards, blown
head over heels by a blast of air from Kudaka’s outstretched hands. Growling with embarrassment,
the young shugenja righted herself and asked the spirits to mind her descent, settling her to the deck
carefully as she planned her next move.
“Quite the roar you made just then,” Kudaka observed, clucking her tongue. “I didn’t think
birds did that sort of thing.”

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 “And I didn't think Mantis were so talkative!” Maeko shot back, sweeping her arms up, left
and right in succession, sending drafts whipping along the deck and up into the air. Kudaka dodged
like a bending reed, leaning at angles that seemed impossible. The gentle bending resolved into a
flipping kick, the older woman sending a blade of air screaming back toward Maeko, who raised
another shield of turbulence to bat it away. Before Kudaka could attack a second time, Maeko lunged
forward and blew out a long breath, sending a blast of air that sent the older woman awkwardly
stumbling back a few paces before she caught her balance
“Good!” crowed Kudaka, clapping in appreciation. “lsawa Asahina should be proud of his
descendant. You’re pretty young to have such good control over the kami’s gifts.” Her smirk turned
dark. “But I’ve got the advantage.”
The woman suddenly spun in a circle, and a whirlwind lashed the ship, sending the entire
vessel creaking and rocking. Maeko quickly blocked the attack and opened her mouth to unleash a
blistering retort—when she looked behind her to see sailors slumped in various positions around the
deck, bruised and groaning but alive. She turned toward Kudaka in shock, but the older woman
merely nodded.
“Y’see what I mean?” She crossed her arms confidently.
Maeko snarled. “You said this was a duel!”
Kudaka shook her head. “Never said that. But more importantly, You gotta learn how a true
test of our powers works: whatever we do, however neatly we try to fight-there are consequences to
everythin' around us. My people are all waitin' for me to finish up here, while yours are out in the
open. Even if you beat me, it’s likely they’ll still lose. Now... you wanna surrender? Or do you have
a move that’ll actually catch me off guard first?”
Maeko’s mind raced. She glanced at the banged-up sailors behind her; the Mantis ship
floating in the near distance, with the sailors she’d knocked into the water already climbing up its
sides; at Kudaka, who looked at her evenly; back at the sailors, and the anemic flutter of the sail in
the—
Wait. Of course!
Spinning around, the young shugenja pointed her body toward the sail of the ship, and
opened the whole of her being to the spirits around them.
Kami of air, I beg you-Iisten to my plea now, even if you never do so again, and lend me
your strength!

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 The world seemed to explode into a roar as a massive gust of wind erupted from Maeko’s
fingers, snapping the sail of the Loyal Duck so violently that the mast nearly cracked with the force.
Sailors howled as they skidded across the deck, and even Kudaka cursed as she was knocked off her
feet. The sail billowed as Maeko channeled air into it for what felt like an eternity, until the young
woman’s power ebbed and she slumped to the deck, exhausted. She turned to see the Mantis ship in
the distance-gaining on them quickly, but still far enough away to have made her gambit worth it.
Kudaka stumbled to her feet, groaning. “Ow. I gotta hand it to you, girl, that was a move I
didn’t see comin’. Don’t know what it’ll really get you, since my ship will catch up to us soon
enough and loot your supplies, so...”
Kudaka’s words trailed off as Maeko stumbled over and pulled the oilcloth from one of the
lumps on the deck-revealing a stack of clay bricks. “This is our cargo,” she coughed, shaking her
head. “Not jade or gold, just bricks. Something I knew would weigh us down, to catch the eye of
anyone looking for a worthwhile bounty.
“So,” Maeko tried and failed to hide a wince as she stood. “The question isn’t if you can best
me, but how many of us you can take down before your ship reaches you... and if some piles of
bricks are worth the effort.”
Kudaka’s face was still for a long moment. Then, slowly, the tenkinja began to laugh. “Got
it wrong when I said you took after your family’s founder. You’re more like his wife, who beat him
in the Victory with No Strike. Never thought I’d have that kind of tactic used on me.” The older
woman shrugged, and hopped up onto the ship's railing. “Good job, Asahina Maeko. Hope we get
to fight again.” The smirk returned, a final time. “I’m lookin’ forward to it.” Kudaka leapt over the
side, and moments later, Maeko spied a figure borne upon the waves, streaming back toward the
Mantis ship and out of sight.
Maeko sighed and her knees buckled—she would have hit the deck hard, but a strong hand
caught her and set her down carefully. The captain appeared in her vision, his gaze respectful.
“Lady Asahina,” the captain said carefully, “the Loyal Duck is still seaworthy, but in dire
need of repair. What are your orders?”
“Unlash all the bricks and shove them overboard—they served their purpose. We must make
our way back to City of the Cold Wind as swiftly as possible. I have grave news to deliver.” She
winced. and sighed just before passing out. “And sometimes I hate being right...”

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The winds whipped around the deck of the Poison Tide as it returned to Kyuden Gotei, sending
sailors cursing as they leapt after lashing ropes and struggled to bring down waterlogged sails.
Kudaka stood at the helm, eyes dark as she communed with the kami, one hand twitching slightly
as if carving patterns in the air. The tenkinja seemed in a different world, her hair and clothes only
lightly buffeted by a gentle breeze—although any sailor who approached her was shoved back as if
by a gale.
At last, the ship pulled into the harbor, and she winced as she noticed a trio of familiar figures
waiting. Fighting down the urge to spring off the ship and let the spirits of the wind carry her to the
dock, she waited patiently to disembark and greet her Champion and protégés.
“The Poison Tide sits high in the water,” Yoritomo observed casually. “I take it your strike
against the jade shipment from Lonely Shore City did not go as planned?”
Kudaka raised her chin proudly, gave her students—the twins Fuu and Umi—a long
instructive look, then bowed low before her daimyō. As she straightened, she saw genuine concern
in Yoritomo's vivid green eyes. This was not the casual behavior they usually enjoyed, but
circumstances dictated that he know exactly how serious the situation had become.
“Opposite o' that fact, nearly sunk the whole thing,” she said evenly. “Was a good thing I
was able to escape when I did. But even still, we’ve plenty of shoals ahead for us.”
Yoritomo nodded seriously, and beckoned for Kudaka to speak further. The older woman
obliged, taking special care to detail her opponent’s inventive thinking—unusual for the stodgy
Crane—and the tall man took in every word. Fuu and Umi stayed silent as usual, their bright grey
eyes darting back and forth between the two.
After a moment, a wide grin split Yoritomo's face, so ferocious that the twins edged away
from him. “So... well done to that Asahina. It seems one bird among that lot is aware enough to
watch the tides, instead of just stare into the murky water.” He chuckled. “Although it is quite
fortunate the Crane has not yet worked out that we supply the Crab with that which we seize from
them.”
Kudaka raised an eyebrow. “So, what's your plan now? Keep raidin’, or change to somethin’
new?”
Yoritomo smirked, and he cracked his knuckles. “We've been sending squalls to harry lone
targets. That strategy worked to begin our partnership with the Crab, but now with a network

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established and the Crane enmeshed in conflict with the Lion, we can truly press our claim on the
waters.”
The big man clenched his fist, and Kudaka saw with a thrill the determination on his face.
“Now the Storms come for the Crane. And all of Rokugan will soon recognize the might of the
Mantis Clan.”

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255
Desperation hangs about a defeated army like a pall of smoke.
Doji Hotaru could feel it, as thick and acrid as the actual smoke fouling the air of the Crane
Clan war encampment, billowing from myriad cooking, forge, and watch fires. She’d spent hours,
now, pushing her way through it, her retinue of guards and staff officers in tow. Hours spent stopping
to speak with sullen squads of soldiers staring into those same fires, their faces hard and distant as
they each relived their own, small part in the day’s defeat to the Lion. Each time, she’d tried to be a
fresh wind of inspiration, dispersing that pall of despair. She’d spoken to the Crane soldiers of the
pride of their ancestors, of their value to the clan, of defeat being just a temporary thing, a crucible
purifying the army and making it stronger, all of it punctuated by appropriate quotes from the Book
of Sun Tao. And each time, as she’d left them, the soldiers had seemed at least a little brighter, the
haze of despair around them dispelled somewhat.
I was that cleansing wind...
Wasn’t I?
Hotaru and her entourage approached the next group of soldiers, one of the last. One of the
last, that is, if she didn’t count the squads of dour and somewhat squalid warriors clustered in the
distance, around a group of fires set apart from the main encampment. And she didn’t count them.
They made up a war band of rōnin, one of several hired into the Crane army as mercenaries.
Hotaru barely offered them a glance. Honorless dogs... and no doubt bandits, when they
aren’t being paid to fight. They need no inspiration, beyond Crane gold...
Crane gold. There was less of it every day. Certainly not enough to spare for brutish
mercenaries. But the Crane Clan army, small among the Great Clans to begin with, had suffered

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such loss during their battles around Toshi Ranbo that hiring mercenaries had been the only solution.
And that required gold.
The sculpture, titled A Crane Takes Flight, was boxed up for delivery to the waiting
merchants of the Daidoji Trading Council. For as long as she could remember, the piece had been
displayed in the same place in Kyūden Doji, in a corner where a corridor turned. Someone—she
couldn’t recall who—had told her it had been carved by one of the Crane’s most masterful sculptors
at about the time the Unicorn Clan returned to Rokugan—so, three hundred years ago.
And now it was gone, sold by her decree, to pay for mercenaries...
But regret was a sin. What mattered was her clan. Her people and subjects couldn’t eat art,
but if selling it would help the Crane hold the fertile Osari Plains, she would sell every last
masterpiece if she had to.
And what would Satsume say about that?
Hotaru quickened her pace, bypassing the rōnin silhouetted against their bonfire and heading
toward her command post. Along the way, she and her staff passed by a medical tent ringed with
fallen soldiers on litters. The chant of a lone shugenja rose from within, but the prayers were not
enough to drown out the moans rising from many of the litters. Still, was the sound of suffering a
blessing itself, when the alternative was eternal silence?
She couldn’t know.
The grass around the tent entrance had been beaten flat and muddy. How much of the muck
was water, and how much was blood? She could stop, talk to the wounded—
Regret is a sin...
—and just carried on.
The cleansing wind was spent, and she still had much to do.

Hotaru’s retinue dispersed as she approached her command post, a cluster of tents on a high piece
of ground near the center of the encampment. Entering her command tent alone, she stopped. A man
was already there, waiting for her. Daidoji Netsu: the general who had lost the field for the Crane
today.
Hotaru shrugged off the haori jacket she’d worn against the night’s chill and gave her eyes
a moment to adjust to the glow of the lanterns—soft and wan, but still sharply bright compared to
the darkness outside. Daidoji Netsu knelt facing her, his back to the map table depicting the

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disposition of Crane and Lion troops around Toshi Ranbo. When their eyes finally met, Netsu bowed
forward, placing his forehead to the cedar planks of the tent’s floor.
“Rise, Netsu-san,” Hotaru said, “and tell me what went so very wrong today.”
Netsu straightened, but he remained kneeling. He wore no armor, just a kimono of blue and
grey, and had placed his daishō on the floor to his left, ready to be drawn in defense of his lord.
Hotaru noted a folded piece of plain paper beneath the wakizashi.
“I committed the reserve too soon, Doji-ue,” Netsu said. “As a result, when the Lion flanking
force revealed itself and our right began to fail, I had nothing with which to reinforce it.”
Hotaru stared at the map table. Its portrayal of the broader strategic situation around Toshi
Ranbo made the lost battle—depicted by only a few of the many wooden tokens representing the
Lion and Crane troop dispositions—seem a small thing. However, by winning the day, the Lion had
forced the Crane to withdraw from a village known as Three Trees. The Lion would have no doubt
seized and fortified the village by now, cutting off another of the roads into Toshi Ranbo. That left
the Crane in a precarious position, with only a single road, leading from the palace of their Tsume
vassal family, Kyūden Kyotei in the Kintani Valley, by which to supply their garrison still holding
Toshi Ranbo.
Her gaze still on the map table, Hotaru asked, “Why did you commit the reserve when you
did, Daidoji-san?”
“I perceived a weakness in the Lion’s center,” Netsu said, “and sought to exploit it.” Hotaru
heard the Daidoji shift behind her. “I failed. And that failure is why I have prepared this, Doji-ue.”
She turned to find Netsu holding the paper that had been placed beneath his wakizashi.
“It is my death poem, my lady. I will, of course, perform the three cuts to atone for my failure
today.”
Hotaru accepted the paper but didn’t unfold it. Instead, she turned back to the map table and
just let her gaze wander across it. Netsu remained kneeling, waiting for her acceptance of his offer
to commit seppuku.
A long moment passed, filled only by the distant, restless sounds of an army encamped.
Crane heritage—spent to finance the clan’s survival.
Haven’t we spent enough?
Hotaru placed the death poem, still folded, on the place marking Three Trees on the map
table.

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 Regret is a sin.
“No,” she said, turning back to Netsu. “I will not allow you to perform the three cuts.”
Netsu’s face started to tighten in shock, but Hotaru raised her hand. “It is not because I would deny
you the restoration of your honor, Netsu-san. Quite the opposite, in fact. I would have you restore
your honor by leading our army to victory in its next battle.”
“My lady—”
“You committed the reserve because you saw a chance to break the Lion’s line, correct?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“So you sought an opportunity to win the day. As a result, you were unable to prevent us
from losing the day, yes?”
“I... suppose that is true, Doji-ue.”
“And did not Akodo-no-Kami say, in his great work Leadership, that ‘to defend is to merely
be hopeful, but to attack is to be victorious’?”
“He did, my lady.”
“I would rather have a general commanding our army who aggressively seeks to win,
Daidoji-san, than one who fights to simply not lose.”
“I understand, Doji-ue. But that does not change the fact that I failed you, failed our clan—
”
“A failure that I expect you will remember, and not repeat, Daidoji-san.”
Netsu looked up at Hotaru for a moment, then bowed. “I am unworthy of the trust you place
in me, my lady. I shall endeavor to earn it.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.” She looked at the map table, at the paper placed on Three Trees.
“In the meantime, I shall leave your death poem where it is. I shall return it to you after your victory
in our next battle against the Lion.”
And if you are defeated again, I shall read your poem, and you will perform the three cuts,
Daidoji-san. They were words she did not say, because it was unnecessary. Both knew that Netsu’s
seppuku had been stayed—not prevented altogether.
The Daidoji opened his mouth to say something else, but a sudden commotion outside cut
him off. Voices rose—a sudden exclamation—then a heavily cloaked figure pushed into the tent.
Netsu immediately reached for his katana, but he stopped when the figure pushed back their hood.
Hotaru... simply stared.

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 The man standing in the entrance gave a thin smile.
“Greetings, sister,” Doji Kuwanan said. “I see that you were not expecting me.”

“Kuwanan,” Hotaru smiled broadly after dismissing Netsu. “... you are alive!”
Kuwanan sniffed. “Unless you believe me to be a shiryō come to haunt you, then so it would
seem, sister.”
Hotaru’s smile slipped a fraction at the hard edge to her brother’s words. Ghosts... Did
Satsume haunt her now, sabotaging her efforts to lead the clan through these trying times?
Foolish, she chided herself. He’s dead and gone.
“All that we knew,” she managed instead, “is that you had been reported missing after a
skirmish at Shirei Mura. No body was found, but with no other leads to go on, we had to assume the
worst.”
“I was taken captive by a band of rōnin. Fortunately, I was able to escape them. I made my
way to Kyūden Kakita, where I learned that you were here.”
Hotaru looked at the map table. Taken captive by a band of rōnin. Not unlike the ones now
deployed with the Crane army. Could they be...?
She dispelled the thought and looked back at Kuwanan. “Well, I thank the Fortunes for your
return, my brother. It is so good to see you again.”
Kuwanan slipped off his straw traveling cloak, draped it across a camp stool, then warmed
his hands over a brazier filled with glowing embers. As he did, his own gaze roamed across the map
table.
“Our situation does not look promising,” he said at last, then frowned at the folded paper
placed over Three Trees on the map. “What is that?”
“Daidoji Netsu-san’s death poem,” Hotaru explained. “He offered to perform the three cuts,
to atone for our defeat by the Lion today.”
“I see. And when will this occur? It is only right to attend.”
“It will not occur. I did not accept his seppuku.”
Kuwanan shot Hotaru a keen glance. “Why not?”
“He is a skilled general and an asset to our clan. Accordingly, I charged him to claim victory
in our next battle, as a better way to atone for defeat in this one.”
“But he was defeated today.”

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 “Yes, but—”
“But nothing!” Kuwanan snapped. “He led our army to defeat, leaving our strategic
position...” He waved a hand at the map table. “Not just weak, but practically untenable. We have
soldiers, subjects, even hostages weighing in the balance. Kakita Asami—” He stopped, recollected
himself before continuing. “And despite the stakes, this is the man you would have lead our forces
again?” Kuwanan glared at the death poem for a moment, then turned it on Hotaru. “You should
have accepted—expected—the three cuts from him, sister. That is what Bushidō demands.”
Hotaru made herself not shrink from her brother’s hard stare. He had no idea what was
demanded of her. “Bushidō demanded that he make the offer, brother. And he did. It is my choice
as champion to accept it or not.”
Kuwanan glanced at the folded paper and nodded. “So it is.” He looked back at Hotaru. “It
is simply unfortunate that you tend to make such... compromises.”
What do you know of compromises, brother, when you have never truly been tested?
A still moment passed, split only by the soft snap of an ember in the brazier. She could not
let the insult stand. “Compromises?”
Kuwanan, his eyes still on the paper, gave a slow sigh. “Your choices make no sense to me,
sister. You place a failed general in command of our army, when one more defeat likely means the
loss of Toshi Ranbo itself.” He turned and locked his gaze on hers. “And you do nothing about the
death of our father.”
“The Emerald Magistrates—”
“Are investigating, yes. So I was told at Kyūden Kakita. And what have they learned?”
“They had not yet made a report when I left Otosan Uchi.”
“So nothing, then. Doji Satsume dies, weeks turn into months, yet there are no interrogations,
no arrests, no charges brought against anyone!”
Hotaru clenched her fists at her side. “For there to be suspects, my brother, there must have
been a murder. But the Emerald Magistrates have so far ruled the death to be of natural causes.”
“So Satsume wasn’t murdered, then?”
“Are you not listening? I said—”
“You are making no effort to discern the truth for yourself !” Kuwanan interrupted her,
pacing across the tent. “You have an obligation to see justice done for him, our family, and our clan.
To determine who killed our father, and seek vengeance against them.” He stopped, paused, then

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added, “That is certainly what our honored father would have expected of you... And it’s what he
would have done in your place.”
You dare! You, who have never been through what I have had to endure...
Hotaru found herself gritting her teeth again. Deliberately, she relaxed her jaw. “But it is not
our father who is the one facing these decisions. I am.”
Kuwanan wheeled back to her. “That is the only thing that is certain here. You are making
these choices. They are certainly not the ones Father would have made.”
Because I am not him, and I have no wish to be. But Kuwanan clearly would not understand.
He had not come to accept her in his father’s place. And maybe he never would.
Instead, she simply said, “All we know is that our father died, Kuwanan. The Fortunes may
very well have decreed it was his time to return to the Karmic Wheel. The Emerald Magistrates—”
“Are not the Crane! They are not our family!” Kuwanan stepped closer to Hotaru, his
expression still hard, but underlain by one of pleading. “Do you not see, sister? Honor demands that
we... that you learn the truth behind his death, whatever it is. And if he was murdered, then you must
exact justice for his death.”
Hotaru looked at the map table, but she didn’t want to see its dire message, so she turned to
the brazier instead.
It is all so simple for you, because you would not be champion of our clan. Father did not
expect of you what he expected of me. You never failed him, because your successes didn’t matter.
How can you not see that?
Her silence left Kuwanan scowling. “Perhaps you simply don’t want to investigate
Satsume’s death, Hotaru. Perhaps you just don’t care about the truth... or simply don’t want to know
it.”
Hotaru’s fists tightened along with her jaw this time. She spun back to her brother’s hot gaze,
fingernails digging into her palms. “How can you even say such a thing?”
“It is because, sister, I don’t think you are particularly sorry about Satsume’s death. You still
blame him for our mother’s suicide—”
“If I do,” Hotaru snapped, “it is because he drove her to it. But even if that’s true, how dare
you suggest that I would let that cloud my judgment or shirk my duty because of it!”
“And yet, you still do nothing.”

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 Hotaru took a deep breath... and let it out. This conversation was spiraling toward places
from which it might not be able to return. She made her voice become calm. “The Emerald
Magistrates have, as you’ve acknowledged, been investigating this matter for weeks. They have
found nothing to suggest Satsume was murdered. Do you believe they are lying, or are they simply
incompetent?”
“What I believe,” Kuwanan shot back, “is that you are content to leave the whole affair in
the hands of others, their honesty or competence notwithstanding.” He paused, pursing his lips, his
gaze still on his sister. Finally, he said, “The Scorpion have had much to gain with our father’s
passing. I’ve heard that Bayushi Aramoro was a final contender for the Emerald Championship. It
may have been Akodo Toturi who ultimately won the office, but that does not change the fact that
our clan’s loss cannot help but be the Scorpion’s gain—Bayushi Kachiko’s gain.”
Hotaru moved to the map table; the war board had fallen from view. For Kuwanan to even
hint that Kachiko had somehow been involved in Satsume’s death was so reprehensible she wanted
to strike him—
“...some suggest that his death was neither natural nor accidental...” So Shizue had said
shortly after Hotaru had arrived in the Imperial Capital, “...and that now the Emerald Championship
is available for those who might covet it.”
Hotaru had gone on to consider how Shosuro Hametsu, Kachiko’s brother, was a master of
poisons. And then there had been her own words, back to Shizue that day:
“...with each passing day, the Scorpion grip on the Imperial Court grows ever tighter...”
Kuwanan stepped up beside her. “Sister—listen to me. I believe that we—you, me, and many
others—are being manipulated. Someone considers us little more than puppets, to be moved about
according to their conniving whims.” He leaned closer to Hotaru. “Satsume’s death... my capture
by rōnin... the Emerald Championship... all of it is theater, performed to the brush and ink of some
unseen playwright. That playwright might be the Imperial Advisor.” He held up a hand as she
opened her mouth. “And it might not. But we must know for certain. And I am not the only one who
believes this possible.”
Hotaru looked at her brother. The sudden flare of indignant anger had faded, but she still
wanted him to just... be quiet.
“What is your proof of this?” she asked.

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 “Proof ?” Kuwanan shrugged. “At the moment, I have none. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t
exist, or that such manipulation isn’t real.”
“Anything can be true, if it’s sufficient to simply say it is.”
“I said I have no proof at the moment, sister. I simply need to find it.” He leaned closer again.
“Let me do that, Hotaru. Let me find the proof. Let me unravel this conspiracy and bring its
perpetrators to justice.”
Hotaru looked once more at the map table. She had grown up with A Crane Takes Flight,
always in its same place, a solid, constant presence. She almost broke the sculpture once, while she
and Kuwanan, just children, had chased each other along the corridor. She had tripped and struck
the sculpture and it had teetered toward destruction, but Kuwanan had saved it, leaving them staring
wide-eyed at each other over the near disaster.
And now it was gone, that obscure corner in the palace empty.
The map table blurred. Hotaru blinked until its bleak depiction of Crane fortunes was clear
again.
Regret is a sin.
Daidoji Netsu’s death poem drew her eyes. She had refused his seppuku because the Crane
needed him. The clan had spent enough of its dwindling wealth... enough of its heritage and
heirlooms... enough of its lives. It could afford no more.
Just as she had to Netsu, she turned to Kuwanan and said, “No. You are needed here,
Kuwanan. I need you to help stabilize our strategic situation and then begin working toward a
counteroffensive to consolidate and secure our hold on Toshi Ranbo.”
Kuwanan just stared at his sister for a moment. Just as when they were children, Hotaru
could see his gaze hardening with a stubborn defiance. If he’d been held to the same standards as
she had, Satsume would have ensured that defiance remained a thing of the boy, no longer a part of
the man. But he hadn’t, so...
Kuwanan shook his head.
No... please, Kuwanan-kun, do not do this...
“You want me to do things that are merely necessary, sister.” He picked up his straw cloak
and pulled it over his shoulders. “But I must do what is right. I’m sorry you cannot see that.”
She could stop him. Place him under guard. But she didn’t. She knew her brother’s flares of
temper well. They were like the rain squalls that often swept across Kyūden Doji from the ocean—

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intense, but brief. He might balk at her commands, but in the end, Doji Kuwanan was driven by
duty, just as she was.
Kuwanan disappeared behind the flap of the tent into the night.
Let him uncover the truth he so craves. I know it was not Kachiko.
Kachiko had chosen Hotaru over her clan once before. She would not have killed Hotaru’s
father—unless she thought it was what Hotaru wanted.
Was it? Was she happy now?
No, impossible. I must be exhausted to even entertain such a notion.
No, now there was only greater pressure for her to produce an heir with Kuzunobu. Her
clan’s alliance with the Fox Clan, which might yet hold the secrets to restoring elemental harmony
to their lands, depended on it.
But what would succession matter if there was nothing to pass down? She would not leave
a clan in shambles to her child as Satsume had.
Our sacrifices will not have been in vain.
Distantly, thunder rolled across the plains.
And I will not regret.

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A dry wind slid out of the Shadowlands, fluttering the paper wards Kuni Yori had affixed to the
Wall. Horns and drums were sounding from a distant watchtower, but Yori ignored them, keeping
his gaze fixed to the south. Kuni Utagu looked in the direction of the signals, then moved closer to
his daimyō.
“Lord Yori,” Utagu said, “Lone Candle Keep signals that the enemy has attacked in force to
the north. If we depart now-”
“This is our place, Utagu-san.”
Kuni Utagu’s voice dropped further. “My lord, if we wish to test this new ward you have
crafted, we should—”
“There is a vacant position in our embassy to the Crane, Utagu-san,” Yori said, turning to
face Utagu. “Questioning me a third time will convince me that you are an excellent candidate for
it.”
Utagu bowed and stepped back. As he did, Yori pointed. “And... there, Utagu-san, do you
see? Our enemy approaches even now.”
A wave of darkness rose up from the blasted approach to the Wall, quickly resolving into a
horde of chitinous monstrosities, like swarming ants. Horns and drums sounded again, all around
them this time, as the bushi and their supporting archers and siege engines braced for the onslaught.
Utagu narrowed his eyes at the approaching horde. “How did you know they would attack
this place, my lord? And at this time?”
“I know our enemy, Utagu-san.”

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 If Utagu had a reply, it was cut off by an ear-scraping rattle of segmented limbs and clashing
mandibles that grew louder by the second. Arrows hissed away from the archers, rattling
ineffectively against resinous carapaces. A heavy stone flung from a catapult slammed into their
midst, crushing several horrors into black paste, but the horde didn’t slow. It continued its headlong
rush, charging directly toward where Yori stood among the fluttering wards.
Half a bowshot, now.
Yori closed his eyes and began to intone a prayer. Some of the paper wards shivered madly
in response, jade-green light flaring from one, then another, then more in quick succession. The
onrushing swarm swerved aside, slamming into the Wall to Yori’s left. A caustic stink rose from
the creatures as they clambered over one another, piling up against the stone. Arrows poured into
the rising pillar of monstrosities while chūi and gunsō shouted orders, readying their troops for the
attack. The crest of the squirming pile reached the battlements, segmented legs scrabbling at the
stone. Tetsubō and the great axes called masakari rose and fell, hacking limbs and cracking
carapaces, knocking the creatures back—
Something massive erupted from the heaving pile, a vile fusion of the creatures, dozens of
them joined into a single, monstrous entity. It easily mounted the Wall, serrated mandibles
seemingly everywhere, clashing, chewing through armor, flesh and bone. More bushi piled into the
fray, striking and slashing, but the huge agglomeration of creatures kept shoving forward, driving
the defenders back.
“My lord!” Utagu shouted.
“Indeed,” Yori said, closing his eyes and chanting again.
The remaining paper wards fluttered wildly. Yori felt the Earth kami roiling in the stone
beneath his feet, but his will, focused through the wards, infused them with unified purpose. He
shouted a final word of supplication and flung up his arms. A deep rumble. The Wall trembled...
then a massive spike of rock stove upwards from the battlement, skewering the fused monstrosity
like a colossal yari striking it from below. An explosion of fetid gore showered the bushi engaged
with it, sending them stumbling back, retching and wiping desperately at their mouths and eyes.
Yori lowered his hands and watched as the remaining bushi closed back in. “We are done
here, Utagu-san.”
“But... Lord Yori,” Utagu said, “these warriors yet need our aid-“
“Are you saying they require our continued assistance to win this battle, Utagu-san?”

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 “I... no, of course not, my lord.”
“Good. Now, select six of those most affected by the creature’s effluent. Have them brought
to Castle Kuni.” He paused and looked at Utagu’s apprentice, a young man staring at the carnage
with wide eyes. “You... Kuni Daigo, is it not?”
The apprentice blinked, then bowed. “Yes, my lord—”
“You will accompany them, recording detailed observations as you do. When you reach
Castle Kuni, deliver your report directly to me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Yori waved a hand and the remaining paper wards curled to ash. He turned and walked away
from the dying clamor of battle.

Kuni Yori leaned on his worktable and browsed the notes taken by the apprentice, Daigo. The effects
of the foul liquids shed upon the bushi were both detailed and insightful, surprisingly so. He must
keep an eye on this Kuni Daigo...
A faint sound made Yori turn. He stood alone in his work chamber, a spartan dungeon deep
beneath Castle Kuni. He started to turn back to the notes, but his gaze caught on something
resembling a large bird pinned to a stained slab of wood. It had feathers of bone, each as a keen as
a katana’s blade, and a bulbous head split by a mouth bristling with needle-sharp teeth. A spawn of
Nairu’s Oni. It was dead, of course, and should be in the specimen vault. But its delicate, dangerous
feathers fascinated him with their vile beauty, so he'd kept it, as a curiosity...
The Nairu spawn’s head was facing him, its eye sockets filled with blackness, with cunning
and knowing.
You will damn them all, Yori, it hissed, with your foolish pride.
Yori closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the Nairu’s head was canted to one side,
its eyes as empty and dead as they’d always been.
Sighing out a breath that tasted of chemicals seeping from the nearby laboratories, Yori
turned back to Daigo’s notes—
Another noise-this time, a soft tapping on the heavy wooden door that separated his work
chamber from the laboratories. Yori moved to the door and opened it, to find a woman waiting there.
“Kuni Ayame-san,” he said, returning her bow and gesturing her in, “it is good to see you.”

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 “As it is you, Lord Yori.” Ayame entered the work chamber, followed by a servant carrying
a large wooden box. “Your summons was clearly urgent, so I came as quickly as I could.”
Yori closed the door with a soft thud. “Time-sensitive is more accurate.” As they settled onto
opposite sides of a small table, he said, “I have followed your work with interest. It appears...
promising.”
Ayame offered a shrug. “I have made small gains, my lord, since the last time we met.”
Yori narrowed his eyes at what might be intended as a minor rebuke. He had last visited
Ayame’s laboratory in the Kuni Wastes... a year ago? Longer? He couldn’t recall.
“Small gains are still gains,” he said, returning the shrug. “in any case, I have a renewed
interest in your work. According to the last report I read, you have been able to entirely suppress the
Taint in a subject, yes?”
In answer, Ayame gestured for the servant to place the contents of the box on the table
between them. It was a small bonsai tree contained in a large glass bell jar. It appeared no different
than the multitude of bonsai trees gracing homes and courts throughout the Empire. But Yori
immediately took note of the soil, which was grey, like ash, and shot through with fungal tendrils—
some as fine as hair, that writhed against the glass; others bulbous and pulsating, like disembodied
veins.
“I have applied my methods to the tree,” Ayame said, "which is rooted in soil taken from the
Shadowlands. it remains entirely unaffected by the Taint.” She paused, then went on. “It is, I believe,
a significant achievement... and most gratifying to have it recognized by my esteemed daimyō.”
Yori looked up from the tree. Again, a hint of recrimination. Yori frowned. He owed his
vassals no explanation for his interest in their work, or lack thereof.
Perhaps that is not what pains her, Yori. The Nairu spawn looked back at him, knowing...
“Yori?” Ayame said as they strolled along a battlement at Castle Kuni. “That is the name
you have chosen for your gempuku?”
The young man who would soon be known as Kuni Yori nodded. “Why? Do you find it...
objectionable?”
She gave an exaggerated frown. “Yori,” she said, as though testing the name, to see if it fit
in her mouth. “Yori...” His own frown deepened and Ayame laughed. “Do not be so serious! It is a
fine name.” Her hand brushed his and she smiled brightly. “I am certain I will quickly become
accustomed to it.”

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 Yori glanced down at their hands...then back at Ayame, and he smiled in return.
Yori turned back to Ayame. “Lord Kisada has made it clear that every resource, every
opportunity to assist the clan, must be exploited.” He looked at the bonsai tree. “Your work has
clearly progressed to the extent that it is more than... a curiosity. It is something that must be more
fully explored.”
You speak of the promise of her work. Perhaps she thinks of another promise, one that you
never kept.
Yori turned again to the Nairu spawn, but it was, of course. mute and lifeless.
“I see,” Ayame said. “Well, I have begun to apply the method to simple animals... mice and
rabbits taken from the Shadowlands. These subjects are—”
“What of men?”
Ayame stared for a moment. “We... still have much to learn, my lord, before we begin to use
humans as test subjects.”
Yori glanced at the Nairu spawn. “We do not have the luxury of such time. We assign our
Tainted brothers beyond the Wall, to The Damned, but that is an imperfect solution. it only forestalls
the inevitable. We must retain every warrior we can on the Wall.”
“But my lord—”
“There are test subjects available,” Yori went on, picking up the notes made by Kuni Daigo
and offering them to Ayame. “These are detailed observations regarding them, from the moment
they were first exposed... a rare opportunity. Speak to Kuni Utagu... he will arrange for them to be
transported to your laboratory, along with anything else you may need.”
Ayame opened her mouth, but closed it again.
“We are the Crab, Ayame-san,” Yori said. “We waste nothing.”
She finally nodded. “Your will, my lord.”
When she was gone, Yori resumed other work he had put aside. He glanced once at the Nairu
spawn, but it remained... was... dead.

Yori shaded his eyes against the bleak sunlight of the Kuni Wastelands. Nothing but barren, lifeless
dirt and rock surrounded Ayame’s laboratory, itself a dour cluster of stone buildings. This had once
all been Tainted, the pervasive residue of an ancient attack that had breached the Wall. Many

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decades of effort had mitigated the corruption, but the methods used were a dead-end, suitable only
for dumb soil and stone... and even then, they left utter lifelessness in their wake.
Yori continued into the laboratory. Perhaps more promise waited within.
He passed through an entry vestibule and into a dimly lit room crammed with the tools of
the Kuni trade—arrays of alchemical apparatus, beakers and flasks, alembics and crucibles, some
bubbling over guttering flames. A few bottles contained viscous fluids that glowed with their own
light. He passed the bell jar containing the bonsai tree; another filled with what seemed to be nothing
but tentacles, slowly writhing; yet another containing a disembodied hand in yellowish fluid, whose
ragged nails scraped at the glass as Yori passed by. A fume, cloying and acrid, hung in the air. He
found Ayame at the back of the laboratory, speaking with a hulking Hida bushi in a barred cell.
Three other Crab warriors occupied nearby cells. All appeared well. They bowed at Yori’s arrival.
“Lord Yori,” Ayame began. “As you can see, we are making significant progress.”
Yori nodded curtly, then turned his attention to the Hida. “How do you feel?”
“I am fine, Kuni-sama,” he rumbled. “In fact, I’m ready to quit this cell and return to my
duties.”
“These are your duties, Hida-san, until you are otherwise directed.”
The man’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but he nodded. “Of course, Kuni-sama.”
Yori gestured for Ayame to follow him. They stopped near the jar containing the restless
hand. “It appears that your methods continue to bear fruit, Ayame-san.”
“I am... cautiously optimistic. The four remaining subjects still find the touch of jade
unpleasant, but even that seems to be fading.”
“Excellent.” The hand abruptly flattened itself against the jar, as though reaching for them.
Yori glanced at it, then said, “I expect to soon have another subject for you.”
Ayame frowned. “I would prefer to remain focused on these cases, my lord. As I said, I'm
optimistic, but the outcome remains far from certain. The final stage of the process is yet to begin,
and it carries the most risk, both to the subjects and the Practitioner.”
“Lord Kisada's wishes are clear. There is considerable urgency to this. And...” Yori looked
again at the jar containing the hand.
…her hand brushed his...
He turned back to Ayame. “And there are few I would trust with such an important
undertaking. I... have faith in you, Ayame-san.”

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 Ayame—
...smiled brightly...
—bowed. “Your confidence honors me, Lord Yori.”
“How long do you anticipate this final stage will take?”
“At least several days. Perhaps a week.”
Yori nodded. “Very well. Send word to me when you have completed the process. I shall
return then.”
“As you wish, my lord.”

A week passed. Another. And still there was no word from Ayame. Yori could finally wait no longer
and returned to Ayame’s remote workshop, accompanied by Utagu, his apprentice Daigo and—at
Utagu’s insistence—a squad of Hida bushi.
It was immediately clear that something was wrong.
Yori studied the cluster of buildings. No movement, and just deep silence, aside from a fitful
wind that raised dust devils from the desiccated soil.
Without a word, he entered the laboratory, followed by Utagu, Daigo, and the bushi.
No fume clouded the air. The lamps and burners sat cold and unused.
Yori felt the bushi tense and heft their weapons. Utagu gripped a finger of jade, his face
grim. He said, “My lord—”
Yori raised a hand, cutting him off. He heard something, now... a soft, wet sound coming
from the rear of the laboratory. Yori started that way, but the gunsō leading the bushi stepped
forward. "Kuni-sama, you must let us proceed you.”
Yori frowned, then nodded curtly. The Hida warriors moved forward cautiously, their armor
clattering. Yori and the others followed. When they reached the cells at the rear of thelaboratory,
the Hida stopped suddenly. Yori heard the gunsō whisper, “By the Kami...”
Yori stepped around the man's armored bulk.
The cell that had contained the Hida bushi was now filled with a mass of heaving flesh that
bulged obscenely through the bars. The other cells held...
Worse. Much worse.
But Yori’s gaze was drawn to the figure on the floor. It was, he assumed, Kuni Ayame, but
the grey, brittle form could have been anyone. Stepping forward, he knelt. He was perilously close

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to the distended flesh in the cell, so much so that both Utagu and the gunsō immediately stepped
forward, Utagu saying, "My lord, beware!”
But Yori ignored him, looking instead at the crumbling shape on the floor. It was horrifying,
but more horrifying still was that it yet lived, fragments like greasy ash flaking away as it moved,
The mouth worked—
...she smiled brightly...
—a soft, dry rattle briefly becoming recognizable words.
“... doesn't... work...”
Kuni Yori shook his head. “No, Ayame-san. It appears that it does not”

Kuni Utagu placed the bonsai tree on Yori’s worktable. “As you directed, Lord Yori, this is all that
remains, aside from Ayame’s notes. Everything else has been destroyed.”
“And what of Ayame herself?”
“She... lives, after a fashion. Daigo remains with her, observing... also as you directed.”
“Very well.”
Yori expected Utagu to depart, but the man hesitated. “My lord, if I may... we were forced
to send Ayame’s test subjects to their rest. Should we not do the same for Ayame-san herself?”
Yori stared at the bonsai tree. Most of its needles had been replaced by thin, writhing
tentacles. “We are the Crab, Utagu-san—”
Her hand brushed his...she smiled brightly...
“—we waste nothing.”
Utagu paused, as if he meant to say more. But he finally just bowed and departed.
For a while, Yori stared at the vulgar corruption of the bonsai tree.
Eventually, he picked it up and took it to a heavy vault set into the stone. The lock, a
complicated device of Kaiu construction, took him a moment to open. He swung open the heavy
door, then rearranged some of the contents—a smooth, porcelain mask of unknown origin he’d
discovered among his late father's effects, and a thick sheaf of papers bearing a single name, that of
his great-grandfather, Kuni Mokuna—a man whose name was reviled throughout the Empire for his
research. To Yori, though, he was someone to be admired.

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 He paused, brushing a finger over the brittle paper, touching the ribbon he’d used to mark
his place in Mokuna’s ancient journals. Then he turned, retrieved the bonsai tree and placed it in the
newly cleared space in the vault, closed the ponderous door, and locked it again.
You were deceived, Yori.
He looked at the Nairu spawn. “No... I was not.”
So you knew it wouldn’t work? Yet, you allowed her to continue regardless?
Yori moved to the spawn and looked into eyes, blacker than night.
“What I know,” Yori said, “is you.”
The Nairu Spawn said nothing, because It was long dead. Still. as he left his work chamber,
Yori felt its eyes following him.

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The fence post was crooked. Katsuo swore quietly under his breath, wrapped both hands around the
post, and pulled. It came loose from the dry soil too easily; the long summer had baked the dirt into
coarse powder.
“Aren’t you supposed to be mending that fence?”
Katsuo laid the post on the ground, turned, and gave Tomoko a tired smile. She was standing
under a gnarled camphor tree by the side of the path, taking advantage of the shade that didn’t quite
reach the spot where Katsuo was working. Two buckets of water stood on the ground beside her.
“I don’t build like the Kaiu do.” He waved at the hole. “It was crooked.”
“I know.” Tomoko smirked. “I’ve been watching you sweat for a while.”
Katsuo rolled his eyes and held out his hand. “Come here.”
Tomoko stayed where she was and mimicked Katsuo’s gesture. “You come here. It’s
shadier.”
Katsuo shrugged. It was true. He crossed the path and kissed her hello.
“Your mother’s going to wonder where her water is,” he said. Tomoko wrapped her arms
around him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“I volunteered to go to the well on the path that runs right by your farm,” she said. “She
knows exactly where her water is. Besides,” she added, “my parents like you.”
Katsuo said nothing and held Tomoko close. She had threaded a flower into her hair, its
perfume mixing with the scent of camphor from the tree. Looking over her shoulder, beneath the
berry-laden branches, he could see the terraced fields of Kurosunai Village, the local wood
bordering them to his right, and on the left, the dirt road along which the village’s few visitors would

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come and go. Beyond all that, the wider expanse of Ishigaki Province. Maybe one day he would get
a chance to see some of it.
He squinted and shaded his eyes. Tomoko twisted around to see what he was looking at.
There were figures on the road. A small group, mounted, bearing pennants, too far away for him to
read their crest.
“Samurai?” he said. Tomoko nodded.
“Looks like. Doesn’t Yasuki-sama normally come by herself, though?”
“Normally. Why would she need—” Katsuo suddenly felt cold. “It’s the still. The barley.
It’s got to be.”
“No.” Tomoko pushed away from him. She bit her lip. “Maybe? No. Who would tell them?”
“Take the water to your mother, and let her know that samurai are coming,” Katsuo said. “I
can’t go anywhere until this fence is fixed.”
“Make it quick,” Tomoko said. She crouched to retrieve her carrying pole, weaving it into
the handles of the two buckets and heaving it onto her shoulder as she stood up. “Yasuki-sama still
dotes on you like a mother, so you’re our best chance of her going easy on us.”
Katsuo watched her as she hurried away. No sense of contentment this time, or faint wonder
that, of all the boys, she had chosen him... just the cold coil of fear in his stomach.
Yasuki Hikaru had looked after the village for longer than he’d been alive, and she’d saved
him and his family from bandits when he was too young to remember. Since then, she’d come
around more frequently to make sure the bandits were really gone, and never really stopped. She’d
learned his name and those of the other villagers, watched him and Tomoko and Shiro grow up.
Samurai caring about their subjects was somewhat unusual, and it was simultaneously a blessing
and a curse.
Diverting the magistrate’s attention from the shōchū still and the missing barley that fed it
had long since become routine. But nothing good would summon a group of samurai. Katsuo took
a deep breath and turned to the gap in the fence. One thing at a time. First a straight fence, then
straight home.

Katsuo trudged down the track toward his home, too apprehensive to feel weary, despite the heavy
hammer resting over his shoulder. There were people outside the house: the bulky outlines of his
father and mother, the powerful shape of his friend Shiro, chopping firewood—and the sharp lines

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of Yasuki’s traveling clothes and armor. Katsuo started jogging, then forced himself to slow down.
Nothing seemed out of place yet.
Just in front of their home, his dog greeted the samurai with enthusiasm; she crouched to
fuss over him, before taking a stick from the firewood pile and throwing it for Takuhiro to fetch.
The magistrate was of an age with Katsuo’s mother, black hair turning to grey, lines appearing on
her face, but even if she dressed in rags one would never mistake her for a peasant. She was too
poised, too certain in her own strength, her arms decorated with scars she refused to tell the stories
of. In her sky-blue haori, laminated armor gleaming in the sun, she could have been a kami stepping
from the air itself. She greeted Katsuo with a casual wave that made his father cringe.
“Katsuo-kun!” she called. “Your father tells me you have been mending fences.”
“It is so, Yasuki-sama,” Katsuo replied. He let the hammer head drop from his shoulder and
bowed low.
“And taking his sweet time about it,” Katsuo’s father said. “Where have you been, Katsuo-
kun?”
“Mending the fence on the goat field, father,” Katsuo replied. “My first fence post was
crooked, so I had to reset it.”
“Katsuo-kun’s diligence does you credit,” Yasuki said. “You have raised a fine son. A fine
son who seems troubled by something. What ails you, Katsuo-kun?”
Katsuo hesitated, then spoke.
“I saw several samurai on the road, Yasuki-sama,” he said. “I wondered what brought you.”
“I came alone.” Yasuki frowned. “Can you describe these samurai?”
Katsuo shook his head. “They were too distant, Yasuki-sama.”
“Well. I should be present when they arrive. Sanjiro-san, please look after my horse. I feel
the need to stretch my legs.”
“Of course, samurai-sama.” Katsuo’s father bowed as low as he could, but Yasuki was
already walking away. She had barely reached the road when Shiro sauntered over and clapped
Katsuo on the shoulder, staggering him. He was the same age as Katsuo, but where hard work on
the farm had just made Katsuo lean, hard work at the smithy had wrapped Shiro in muscles upon
muscles.
“Praise from the magistrate!” His face split into a wide grin. “Maybe she’ll see fit to name
you as one of her dōshin someday!”

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 “So that he can go traipsing across the entire province on samurai business? No, we need
you here in the village, Katsuo.” Katsuo’s father glanced past his son at Yasuki as she walked up
the road. “But you said there were other samurai?”
“Yes,” Katsuo said. “I think they’re here about the still, or at least the barley we’ve been
putting in it.”
“You can’t know that,” Shiro said, although he looked tense.
“Why else would a bunch of samurai come here?” Katsuo said. “They must know we’ve
been shorting them on the barley.”
“How?” Shiro pressed. “They’re samurai. They don’t know how much barley we get in a
harvest.”
“Someone told them?” Katsuo said. “I don’t know. But they’re definitely coming.”
“Where are the barrels now?” Katsuo’s mother interjected.
“The village leader’s house,” Katsuo’s father said. “As long as Yasuki-sama doesn’t go in—
”
“Where else is she going to go?” Katsuo’s mother snapped. Her face curled like a fist. “If
she’s going to receive other samurai, she’s going to do it there. Tell me at least the barrels are
hidden.”
Katsuo watched the color drain from his father’s face. “We were expecting Shin soon...”
Katsuo’s mother turned away. She swore, explosively, and Katsuo involuntarily took a step
back.
“It’s been too easy for too long,” his father said apologetically. He shook his head. “Pride
has made fools of us all, Maki.”
“It’ll make corpses of us all,” Maki said. She swore again, colorfully. “Katsuo, Shiro, come
with me. We need to keep Yasuki-sama and the others out of that house or we’ll all be put to death.”
“Would they really kill us?” Shiro asked as they hurried for the paddies. Narrow tracks ran
through the rice for unencumbered villagers who didn’t want to take the path around, and these
would now provide a vital shortcut. “Over shōchū?”
“The samurai would kill us over a bow too shallow,” Maki said, “or because they were
having a bad day. They would absolutely kill everyone here over barley we’ve been leaving off the
ledger.”
“But Yasuki-sama always seemed like she cared about our village.” Shiro protested.

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 “Samurai are human,” Maki said. Her face was a fixed mask of tension, all lines and surfaces.
“But Bushidō comes from the Kami. They will do what they think must be done, even if it makes
monsters of them.”

Others in the village had thought along similar lines. When Katsuo, Shiro, and Maki arrived in the
village center, the village leader and the other older villagers—those not working the fields or
attending to other tasks—had gathered and were in the process of greeting Yasuki-sama. The
greeting rituals would delay her, but it was clear she wanted to receive the other samurai in the most
formal setting the village could offer.
“Where are the other samurai?” Katsuo said as the trio slowed to a casual walking speed. He
glanced at his shadow to note the position of the sun. “We saw them at least an hour ago, maybe
two.”
“Worry about that when they arrive,” Maki said. She lowered her voice and pulled the two
young men close. “Katsuo-kun, you and I will talk to Yasuki-sama. Shiro-kun, explain things to the
others when she is distracted.”
She rearranged her face into a pleasant smile and strode toward the samurai, Katsuo trailing
in her wake. He tried to match her demeanor but couldn’t—Yasuki-sama had easily discerned his
earlier anxiousness, and it felt wrong to deceive someone who had never been anything but kind to
him. Couldn’t they explain? Come to some sort of deal?
“Yasuki-sama,” Maki said, bowing low. “May I beg a moment of your time?”
“Of course, Maki-san,” the samurai said. She excused herself from the old man she had been
talking to. As soon as she turned away, he scurried over to where the other elders were gathering
around Shiro.
“Although,” the samurai added, “should my peers arrive, I must greet them at once.”
“Naturally, Yasuki-sama.” Maki bowed again. “My son is old enough now to choose a path
in life, and he wishes to pledge himself to your service. Would you accept him as an ashigaru?”
Katsuo dropped into a low bow to hide the shock on his face. An ashigaru? What about the
farm? Tomoko?
Yasuki said nothing. Katsuo wasn’t sure when—if ?—it would be appropriate to straighten
himself. The villagers murmured to themselves not far off. Insects hummed. No birdsong, though.
Was that an omen?

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 “Katsuo-kun. Maki-san. Straighten.” If Yasuki-sama’s voice were a sword, her hand would
be on the hilt. Katsuo obeyed. The samurai’s face matched her voice, a gentle mask thin enough that
he could see the steel beneath.
“I’ve known your family for seventeen years,” she said, addressing both Katsuo and his
mother, “so I will overlook the insult implicit in your deception. But I am hurt. Why are you lying
to me?”
Katsuo opened his mouth to say something, but he was immediately cut off by a horrible
scream. That was a novel way to distract Yasuki-sama—
Hoofbeats. Who had a horse? Yasuki struck him in the chest, and he fell backward, the breath
knocked out of him as he hit the ground. A huge shape whipped between them in a thunder of
hooves, right where he had been standing. He scrambled to his feet to see a mounted figure—a
mounted samurai!—cutting down screaming villagers. People he knew, people he’d grown up with.
Was this samurai justice for using a little barley to make shōchū? Would there be no trial, no
ceremony? Just slaughter?
“Get inside!” Yasuki bellowed. “Lock your doors!”
She stood alone at the center of a widening circle. The villagers didn’t need her
encouragement to run. A handful of unmoving bodies told the story of those who hadn’t reacted
quickly enough.
Katsuo caught a glimpse of the mounted samurai circling their horse around the smithy,
coming back around for another charge. And there, another! Idly cantering her ragged horse into
view, daikyū in hand, eyes expressionless above the snarling dog muzzle of her helmet. But if they
were no allies of the Crab, why were they here? Why were they killing people?
“Katsuo! Inside! Now!”
“But—”
She spared him a glance, and it was all he could do not to drop to the earth and beg
forgiveness. There was nothing but death in that look. His. Hers. Anyone’s.
An arrow whistled. Yasuki’s sword flickered, and the arrow fell aside in two pieces. Katsuo
ran.
The door to the smithy was closed. Barred. The next house, too. Everyone was taking
Yasuki’s instructions to heart. Behind him, he heard hoofbeats thunder, another arrow whistle,

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Yasuki’s kiai shout rattling the shutters. He glanced back, but the skirmish had moved out of his
sight—
Something rolled under his foot, and he went sprawling across the ground. Looking down,
he saw he’d tripped over a head.
He had no idea whose it was. He couldn’t see the body anywhere nearby. Something
instinctive drove him up and away from it, legs and arms moving of their own accord, hands clawing
for grip on a nearby building. He leaned against it, breathing heavily, unable to take his eyes from
the gory castoff.
Screams burst from inside the house as though his touch had struck a nerve. The nearby
shutters rattled violently against their ties as a heavy weight struck them from the inside, followed
by the distinctive, wet sound of a blade in raw meat. Butchery.
“Katsuo!”
Tomoko ran toward him, clothes soaked with blood, eyes wide with horror. Shiro followed
close behind.
“Run!” Shiro yelled. “They’re in the houses! They’re killing everyone!”
“They’re in the village center, too,” Katsuo shouted back. How many of them were there?
Tomoko crashed into him, flinging her arms around him and crying into his shoulder with
great, heaving sobs. The flower in her hair was still there, Katsuo noticed. Petals a little bent. Not a
drop of blood on them. Shiro was pale, eyes roving, clenching and unclenching his fists. More
screams made them all flinch. They couldn’t stay there.
A door creaked as it swung open. Katsuo didn’t wait to see who was coming out.
“Run,” he urged, disentangling himself from Tomoko. “Run!”
She whimpered, but she moved. Katsuo took off on her heels, and Shiro on his—but Shiro
wasn’t built for speed. Katsuo heard him shriek and fall, then spit defiance and every obscenity he
knew at their pursuer as Katsuo and Tomoko left him behind. Katsuo glanced back as he turned the
corner of the next house: Shiro on one knee, clutching his arms to his chest, a samurai in once-green
armor standing over him. The samurai split Shiro’s stomach side to side with a casual flick of his
wrist. Katsuo ducked around the corner, praying to anyone who was listening that he hadn’t been
seen. Tomoko beckoned from an open doorway, and he ran to join her.
“What’s happening?” she said, voice high and tight. Katsuo shook his head as he closed the
door with painstaking slowness and slid the bar home.

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 “I’ve got no idea,” he whispered. The shutters were still open on the windows into the one
main room. If the samurai followed him, he would be able to look right into the house and see them.
“We can’t stay here.”
“Where can we go?” Tomoko asked. She bit her knuckles to stifle a sob. Katsuo looked
around.
“Out of the back window,” he whispered. “Quick and quiet. We can sneak away while he’s—
”
“And after that?” Tomoko clutched at Katsuo’s shirt. He took a deep breath, held her hands
in his, forced himself not to glance at the window where the samurai would be passing at any
moment. All she wanted was hope. Was for him to convince her that everything could be alright.
“After that, my house. And after that,” he cut off the protest before she could say it, “just...
away. Anywhere but here. We can do it. But we have to do it now.”
She nodded and moved to the back window, climbing nimbly through despite her kimono
and shaking hands. Katsuo followed, then doubled back to snatch a large knife from the kitchen
before joining Tomoko outside. He handed her the knife. She looked at him blankly.
“If you get a chance, stab him.”
“I can’t kill someone!” Tomoko said in horror.
“Maybe not,” Katsuo said. Cut wood was heaped by the side of the house, and next to that
tools—including a heavy maul like the one he had been using to drive fence posts that morning. He
picked it up. “Better to have it and not need it, though.”
A great shout echoed through the village. Something heavy hitting the ground not far away,
wood bouncing off wood. Yasuki still alive, still fighting.
“Go to my house,” Katsuo said. “Take the shortcuts. The samurai don’t know them and their
horses won’t do well in the paddy fields.”
“Oh no,” Tomoko said, shaking her head, divining his meaning. “You’re coming with me.”
Katsuo struggled to find the right words. Any words.
“Yasuki-sama’s fighting them by herself,” he said at last, as if it explained anything.
“And what are you going to do?” Tomoko pleaded. “You can’t fight samurai. You’ll die!”
How could he not fight them? How could he leave the magistrate to fight and die alone when
his presence might make a difference? She’d saved him once—and now he could return the favor.

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 “Listen.” Katsuo tilted Tomoko’s chin up to look her in the eyes. “Head back to your farm,
get your family, and we can meet at my house. If I’m not along soon, leave without me.”
Tomoko took hold of Katsuo’s arms. “I love you,” she said. “I need you to know that.”
“I love you, too,” Katsuo said, and he meant it. He kissed her. “But I couldn’t go without...
knowing.”
Another kiai from the village center, this one muffled. Yasuki had taken her own advice and
gone indoors.
“Go. Be safe. I’ll do what I can.”
I’ll do what I have to.
Katsuo gave Tomoko a small push, then turned away from her. He dared not look back to
see her go.

Movement caught Katsuo’s eye amid the stillness of the village center. The door to the leader’s
house, open and swinging on its hinges. No sign of the samurai, their horses, or Yasuki. No screams.
Not a sound save the soft noise of his own footsteps as he approached the door. If the magistrate
was anywhere, surely she would be here.
It was only proper that the village leader had the largest house in the village. Almost the
whole ground floor was a single open room, large enough for the entire village to gather in if
necessary, and well-appointed enough to greet Yasuki, Shin the merchant, or any other honored
guest.
Today it held something different. The air was thick with the smell of blood. Two large
barrels of shōchū stood where they had been left, unmarked but obvious for what they were. The
tatami mats on the floor were soaked with blood, dead bodies scattered where they had been cut
down. And at the far end of the room, seated at the village leader’s table, was a thing out of
nightmare.
It seemed to be a samurai at first glance, armed and armored as a samurai with a skull-faced
helm—but as Katsuo watched it move, he realized the skull was its face, skinless, given ghastly
expression by what scraps of meat remained attached to it. The monster examined a row of eyeballs
laid out before it on the table, holding each in turn delicately between two slender fingers and
subjecting it to the scrutiny of its eyeless sockets.

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 Katsuo froze just inside the doorway. His stomach clenched like a fist. This was no samurai.
This was something altogether worse. Half-remembered tales of childhood terror struggled for his
attention. “If you don’t behave, the goblins will get you.” Was this... thing... some sort of divine
punishment for withholding the barley?
The creature replaced the eye it was examining in the row before it and moved on to the next
one.
Yasuki was not there. Katsuo made to slip back out of the door but stopped as his roving
gaze picked out the slumped form of his mother, curled into a ball not far from the eyeless monster.
As Katsuo watched, Maki twitched slightly and whimpered. She was alive!
The monster continued with its macabre inventory.
Katsuo approached his mother with painful slowness. Sweat trickled down his face. His
knuckles ached from his grip on the maul. Maki’s face was a ruin, but she still took deep, shuddering
breaths.
Katsuo forced himself to take the last few steps slowly and silently; the thing seemed blind
without eyes. He crouched beside his mother, trying not to notice the horror.
“Say nothing,” he whispered, and Maki swallowed a whimper. “It’s me, Katsuo. The thing
can’t see. If we’re quiet, we can escape.”
“I can see perfectly,” came the haggard voice. Katsuo leapt to his feet, spinning around. The
mockery of a samurai was so close to him that he recoiled, tripping over his own feet until his back
fetched up against a support pillar. One eye had found a home in the thing’s right socket. Its jaw
hung slackly open, its deep, sepulchral voice rolling forth without tongue or lips.
It laid one hand on the hilt of its katana. With the other, it pointed at Katsuo’s face—his
eyes, he realized—then tapped the cheekbone just beneath its empty socket. Tap tap, gauntlet on
bone.
Katsuo clutched the maul defensively. His bowels felt like ice water. His heart had climbed
into his throat, pounding like it might burst.
The mockery closed its mouth with a definitive click. Its katana rung like a bell as it slid
from its sheath. It advanced on Katsuo, not even bothering to adopt a kenjutsu stance. Katsuo raised
the maul, Tomoko’s words coming back to haunt him.
You can’t fight samurai.
You’ll die.

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 An unearthly howl echoed around the room, and a bedraggled shape crashed into the
monster, throwing it off balance.
“Mother!”
Maki shrieked like a spirit from Jigoku as she clung to the creature’s sword arm with her
entire body, spinning the two of them to the ground.
The monster drew its wakizashi backhanded with its free hand and jammed it so hard into
Maki’s chest that Katsuo heard it strike the wood of the floor. Maki spasmed and coughed up blood
but clung to the thing with the tenacity of death itself. The samurai-creature paused to get its feet
underneath itself, ready to cut itself free of the entangling woman once and for all.
Like driving a fence post. Katsuo’s overhead swing blasted the thing’s skull to splinters.

The only sign of life when he reached his family’s farm was Yasuki’s horse still standing patiently
outside. Would the abominations kill all the people but leave the horses alive? Katsuo couldn’t
guess.
“Katsuo-kun!” Tomoko burst from the door and wrapped her arms around him. Then she
pulled back. “I found Yasuki-sama. She’s here!”
Sure enough, the samurai had followed Tomoko out of the house. She was armed with the
maul Katsuo had left behind earlier, clothes disheveled, armor bearing the scrapes and dents of
combat, otherwise untouched. It was like watching a mountain walk out of his home. Behind her
cowered his father, one hand holding the scruff of Takuhiro’s neck. The dog whined and bared his
teeth, aware that something was wrong. Perhaps he could smell them.
“Yasuki-sama,” Katsuo said, bowing. “They’re not human. The one I killed had no face. I
don’t... I don’t know what they are.”
“You killed one?” Yasuki raised her eyebrows a fraction and glanced at the maul Katsuo
held. “Impressive.”
“I had help.” Katsuo couldn’t look at her. Her praise reminded him of Shiro, cut down like
wheat. “Father... Mother is dead.”
Katsuo’s father gave a curt nod, his face paling but showing no other reaction. He and Katsuo
would do their grieving later.
“They are the Lost,” Yasuki said. She propped her maul against the door frame. “Samurai
who have been consumed by the Shadowlands. May I see your hammer?”

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 “It had no face,” Katsuo repeated as he handed the hammer to the samurai. Spoken aloud, it
sounded absurd.
“The Shadowlands spawn every kind of horror,” Yasuki said. She seemed distracted as she
examined the hammer’s head. “Faceless and otherwise. Speak true: did you really kill it?”
“Yes, samurai-sama.”
“Then you have done Rokugan a service.” She propped the maul next to the other one. She
walked out to the front of the farmhouse, glanced up and down the track, then walked back to the
family. For a moment, Katsuo saw an expression struggle to reach her face, but she repressed it.
“Now I must also do Rokugan a service.”
“Midakai Province isn’t far to the east,” Katsuo’s father said. His voice was weak. “We
could find safety there, let the clan know what happened.”
“No,” Yasuki shook her head. “To halt the spread of the Shadowlands Taint, you all must
die.”
She drew her katana. The blade caught the sun.
“What?” Tomoko shrieked. “We survived!”
“Katsuo, Tomoko. You are covered in blood. You have been exposed to the creatures of the
Shadowlands. The Taint could be taking root in your bodies even now. As a samurai in service to
my clan, I cannot permit you to live and spread it further. The most I can offer you is a clean death
by my hand.”
“What about as a human being, Yasuki-sama?” Katsuo’s father asked quietly. “You saved
us from bandits. You have watched Katsuo-kun grow up. Is the most you can offer us, as a person,
a clean death?”
“As a person, it breaks my heart.” Not a trace of emotion made it to Yasuki’s face. “But my
duty is clear. Please. Bow your heads.”
“What about jade?” Katsuo asked, grasping for memories of the stories. “We can just be
purified with jade!”
A whistle, and the sound of metal in meat. Katsuo half expected to experience his own head
falling from his body, but another whistle followed—and this time Yasuki was a blur of motion,
sword slicing a barbed arrow from the air. A third arrow, cut from the air once again. It took Katsuo
a moment to locate the first: planted solidly in Yasuki’s back.

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 On the road, the dog-masked woman from before was back, daikyū in hand. Now that he
knew to look for it, Katsuo could see the Taint in her and her steed alike: their emaciated appearance,
their translucent grey skin shot through with veins of black. Almost casually, the woman unstrung
her bow and dismounted. She drew her sword and looked down its length, inspecting it for defects,
but she did not approach.
“There is no jade,” Yasuki said. A tiny waver in her voice. Pain from her wound, or her
heart? Blood was blossoming onto her haori from the site of the arrow. “The other clans will not
sell it to us, and we do not have enough to discharge our duty.”
Katsuo fumbled for words. “I... don’t understand.”
“Neither do they.” Yasuki tried to draw a deep breath, and couldn’t. She coughed, blood
speckling her lips as they curled into a bitter smile. “I have lived long enough that I forgot about
mortality. I am going to die here, Katsuo, and I need you to swear me an oath.”
“An oath?”
“If your father, or Tomoko—or Takuhiro—show the faintest signs of the Taint... you have
to kill them. If you show the signs of the Taint...”
“I understand.” Katsuo glanced at Tomoko, who was staring with fixed terror at the pale-
skinned samurai on the track. Could he kill her in cold blood? “I will.”
“Then you will be a better samurai than I.” Yasuki reached behind her, and with a gasp of
pain broke the shaft of the arrow. “I will spend what remains of my life to purchase as much time
for you as I can. Take your family and run.”
Katsuo’s father approached them. He silently offered Yasuki a maul. She returned her sword
to its sheath and took the hammer. Hefting it, she began to walk toward the other woman, who was
cutting the air with her sword in the manner of an unschooled bravo.
“I am Yasuki Hikaru of the Crab Clan,” she spat, “and you will meet your end at my hands.”
The woman smirked and shook her head. She lifted her sword in a ready stance.
Katsuo turned to his father. “We need to go.” His father nodded, and the three of them fled
with Takuhiro at their heels. Behind them, Yasuki’s battlecry rang out one more time.

Katsuo had never traveled this far from his home before. Night had fallen some hours ago, but none
of them had wanted to stop. Now, the moon was high, the last heat of the day fading to the chill of
night. He sat on the ground, Tomoko wrapped up with him, Takuhiro and his father asleep together

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on the other side of a small fire. Would the Lost see the fire? Perhaps. But the villagers wouldn’t
survive the night without it.
“I don’t understand,” Tomoko murmured. “She was ready to kill us... then changed her
mind?”
Katsuo listened to the insects, the crackling of the fire. Somewhere, a night bird was singing.
“Samurai are human,” he quoted after a while. “She never wanted to kill us. She just thought
she had to. That it was her duty.”
Because the Crab didn’t have enough jade to do their duty correctly. Wasn’t it the duty of
the Kaiu Wall to keep Shadowlands monsters out of Rokugan? The duty of the other clans to give
the Crab what they needed? How many villages had the Crab slaughtered to keep the Taint
contained?
“Duty,” Tomoko said into his shoulder, her voice morose. “I heard what she asked you.
Would you kill me? If the Taint got me?”
In the end, Yasuki Hikaru had stayed her blade. Would Katsuo have the courage to kill where
she had chosen to die?
“I don’t know,” he admitted at length. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but... would you want to
become something like that?”
Tomoko shuddered. “No.”
They sat in silence for a while, Katsuo listening to the sounds of the night. Tomoko’s
breathing became slow and regular as she finally succumbed to sleep, and he laid her gently down
on the grass.
He lay on his back next to her, staring up at the stars. The world was broken. Were the
Fortunes watching as everything came apart like a cart with a cracked axle? Were they trying to fix
it? Was this part of their plan?
“Something has gone terribly wrong.” He said the words aloud, as if to test them, and hearing
them spoken cemented his conviction that they were true. The giants were fighting, and all he could
do was pray that they watched for the ants beneath their feet.

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They were massive. Each of them was several times longer than Tatsuo was tall, and their snakelike
bodies were so thick that he didn't think he could wrap his arms around them. They were patterned
in muddy greens and browns, as if the Shinomen itself had endowed them with its colors. They wore
no clothes, but each had a bow and quiver slung over their shoulders, along with long, curving
knives. One had a large pouch as well. They stood in place staring at him. Should he speak to them,
and if he did, would they even understand him?
The question was made irrelevant by an arrow that buried itself in the tree nearest to the
creatures. Tatsuo heard Kogoe mutter a curse, and at the edge of his vision she was nocking another
arrow. The creatures were in motion now-heading toward him and Kogoe far too quickly.
He brought up his bow and fired. It went wide and he hastily nocked another. He was well
practiced at shooting things that ran on two or four legs, but the creature’s sinuous movements made
its path difficult to predict. He managed to fire only once more before it was upon him.
As the creature slithered up and over him, Tatsuo had a sensation of solid muscle and barely
contained power, as though he were being shouldered aside by a horse. He dropped the now-useless
bow and reached for his sword, but the creature’s tail whipped around, slapping his hand so hard he
lost his grip. Tatsuo attempted to wrestle with it, but the smooth scaly hide gave his fingers no
purchase on the creature as it coiled around him, knocking him off his feet. The weight of his
opponent pinned him to the forest floor, and he fought for breath as circles of darkness danced
through his vision. Suddenly, the creature shifted its weight, and Tatsuo gasped thankfully for air as
his vision cleared.

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 “What you doing in Shishomen?” it asked, its voice rumbling through the clearing like
distant thunder. The syntax was strange, some of the consonants were slurred, and the words had
oddly stressed syllables, but ultimately it was intelligible Rokugani.
“Shinjo Tatsuo is my name. I am a scout,” he said, recovering. “l was following you, or—”
he paused while he framed the thought, “—your companion, whichever had been in my clan’s lands
to the north of the forest.”
“What is ’clan’? Why you in Shishomen?”
“The forest—the Shinomen—is filled with dangerous things,” Tatsuo answered. “We keep
watch over it.”
“You say watch, but you carry weapons,” the other creature countered. “This one,” he said,
indicating Kogoe with a nod of his scaly head, “this one ready to kill.”
“We were being cautious,” Tatsuo explained. “Several ashigaru have disappeared from this
area. And as long as she is alive and thinks you are an enemy, she will fight you. Hiruma Kogoe's
clan is renowned for their battles against the creatures of the Shadowlands.”
“The Shadowlands?” The two Naga turned to face one another, then looked back to Tatsuo
with looks of confusion.
“A place to the south of here,” Tatsuo said. “A broken, twisted land full of demons and other
monstrosities.”
A violent tremor went through the tail pinning Tatsuo down and the two creatures broke into
loud, hissing talk. What had he said to trigger this? If they were creatures of the Shadowlands, why
didn’t they just kill the two scouts? And if they weren’t, what were they arguing about?
“Stop this noise!” Kogoe’s voice was loud enough to be heard over the argument. “Who are
you? And what have you done with our ashigaru?”
The two creatures paused and looked down toward Kogoe. “I am,” the one coiling Tatsuo
paused for a moment, “the Apieshu. This is the lshikibal. We have done nothing to your ashigaru
you lost them yourself.”
“We have talked too long here,” the lshikibal said. “We are undecided what to do with you,
so we will take you to the Shushual to be judged.” He reached into a pouch slung over his shoulder
and pulled out a length of braided cord.
The Unicorn Clan had eight centuries of stories about encountering foreign cultures, and
those stories all agreed that he and Kogoe hadn’t found a pair of monsters—“the Apieshu” and “the

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lshikibal” were clearly members of an organized society. On the one hand, this made them less
likely to be Tainted. On the other, it meant that there was a new threat in the Shinomen Forest that
the Empire had set no guards against, because no one knew it existed. Tatsuo’s eyes sought Kogoe's
as the creatures finished tying them up and slung them over their shoulders. She had stopped fighting
their captors and her eyes were clear and focused: a scout’s eyes, taking in all that went on around
them.
At first, the forest they traveled through was just that, forest, but gradually it changed: the
trees grew further apart, and the trail became a path that widened into a road. Then the buildings
began, made of carved and carefully fitted stone with elaborate sculptures and ornate decorative
work along the doorways and rooflines. Some were in ruins, with trees growing in and around them,
but many were intact and filled with serpent people going about their business. As they passed by,
Tatsuo caught glimpses of weavers, rope-makers, and stone carvers. All of them paused to stare at
the captives.
Finally, they came to a small structure where another of the serpent creatures was waiting
next to the door. It was smaller than the two who had captured him and Kogoe, and its scales were
a shade of cool blue-green. The Apieshu and the lshikibal exchanged some hissing speech with it,
and then they unceremoniously shoved their prisoners into the building and closed the door. A lock
clicked into place.
Tatsuo rolled to his feet and looked around. Dim light filtered in though short, wide windows
near the roof, revealing bare stone walls, a stone floor, and Kogoe.
“I don't think they are Tainted,” she said. “But what are they?”
“I don't know,” Tatsuo admitted. “I've heard legends of giant snake creatures in the forest,
but I've heard legends of every kind of weird creature in the forest. The only thing that hasn’t been
seen here are karakasakozō, but no one takes paper umbrellas into the Shinomen.”
Kogoe grinned briefly at that. “We need to figure a way out of here before they come back.
I didn’t see a lot of activity in this area, so once we get free of the building we can slip into the forest
and head back to camp.”
It was a sensible plan that would allow them a chance to warn the camp, but... “Perhaps we
should stay and talk to their ‘Shushual.’ We can learn more about who they are and what they are
doing in the Shinomen.”
“Shuichi and the rest need to be warned.”

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 “Our disappearance will have put them on guard,” Tatsuo said. The Unicorn Clan did not
share the rest of the Empire’s xenophobia; learning more about these creatures was worthwhile in
itself. But there was more than that: save for where the Crab guarded their Wall, the Empire had no
defenses on its southern border—the Shinomen had served as a natural defense. But if the forest
was now inhabited, then it was in the Empire's best interest that they not be enemies with the
denizens of the Shinomen. “If we know more about them, we may be able to establish a treaty with
them,” he said. “We could find something they need and trade it for the protection of our southern
border.
He expected Kogoe to reject the idea immediately, but she looked thoughtful. “It would be
like—" she stopped short and gave Tatsuo an odd look. “I can’t say what it would be like.”
“It would be like dealing with gaijin,” Tatsuo said helpfully. “You won’t even have to talk
with them; I can do that. My clan has experience in such things.”
“As you say.”

The plaza was filled with serpent people. Most of them were forest-colored, like the Apieshu and
lshikibel, but some were of ivory or dark brown shades, and here and there were bluish ones who
resembled their jailer. Tatsuo stared openly, trying to get an estimate of how many serpent people
lived in this city and what fraction of them might be warriors. Kogoe stood beside him, no doubt
drawing her own conclusions. Some signal that Tatsuo couldn’t discern rippled through the crowd,
causing them all to turn in one direction. Tatsuo turned as well and saw a line of six serpent people
headed for a stone platform near where he and Kogoe stood, led by one who wore a heavily
embroidered green sash around his shoulders and waist. This, Tatsuo guessed, was the Shushual.
As the newcomers arranged themselves on the platform, the Apieshu and Ishikibel came
forward. “l will announce the Shushual’s words to you,” Apieshu said loudly. “The Ishikibel will
announce your words to him.” Beside him, Ishikibal hissed loudly in his native language. When he
was finished, the Shushual spoke, his words sibilant but also somehow sharp. “What do you know
of the Naga and the Great Sleep?” Apieshu translated.
“I have never heard of the Naga before today,” Tatsuo said. “There are very old stories of
people in the Shinomen seeing giant snakes that spoke, but I had always thought they were merely
travelers' tales.” Never again would he underestimate the forest.

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 Ishikibel translated his words, which caused a burst of talk among the others on the platform.
The Shushual ignored them and spoke again. “You know nothing useful. We should kill you to
protect ourselves from your kind.”
“Death comes to all at the proper time,” Tatsuo replied. It had been one of his sensei's
favorite sayings. “But we know many other things, and our people have scholars who know much
more. If you let us go, we can bring word of you to them.”
“That does not seem wise. Our seers speak of Shishomen lands laid to waste, cities we did
not build, and roaming spirits that smell of sun and rock. And what do you want? This one,” he said,
pointing to Kogoe, “tried to kill us on sight. Why should we let you go so you can tell your ‘clan’
of us?”
“Let Tatsuo go back,” Kogoe said suddenly, “and I will stay here as a hostage.”
Tatsuo stared at her, mouth slightly agape in surprise. The Naga must have been surprised
as well, given the pause before Ishikibel translated her words, and the outbreak of hisses it provoked.
“Why?” Shushual asked, ignoring the argument going on behind him. “Why make this
offer?”
“I was too hasty in shooting at your scouts; I had assumed they were responsible for the
disappearance of our ashigaru. My acts are my honor, so I will stay as an offer of good faith.”
“And do you approve of this?” Shushual asked Tatsuo.
“Kogoe is not a member of my clan, and I have no authority over her,” Tatsuo said. “If you
agree to her offer, I must accept it.”
Shushual was silent for a time as he stared into the distance. “The Akasha finds this offer
acceptable. The Kogoe will stay among us, and the Tatsuo will be returned to his people.”

“What did she say?” Kaiu Shuichi asked. “Why did she stay behind?”
“I have already told you,” Tatsuo replied. “Three times.” The Apieshu’s means of returning
him was to take him in the middle of the night to the clearing where he and Kogoe had first
encountered the Naga and leave him there. it was well after dawn by the time Tatsuo finally made
it back to the camp, where he’d almost been skewered by the spear of a nervous Crab guard. Then
he'd had to explain matters to Iuchi Rimei, who found his tale of talking serpent people difficult to
believe. Shuichi and Kuni Heki didn't question the existence of the serpent people, but were more
suspicious over why Kogoe hadn't come back with him.

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 “Search your memory,” Shuichi demanded. “What have you forgotten to tell us?”
“Kaiu-sama,” Tatsuo said, ”if you will only tell me which presumed lie you would like to
hear again, I will be happy to repeat it back to you.”
“Shinjo, you need to-” Shuichi started. “What was that?” Heki asked, looking out the tent’s
door.
In the silence that followed the Kuni’s question, Tatsuo heard it: a sudden shriek and then
the unmistakable sounds of weapons clashing. The Crab Clan samurai rushed out of the tent, and
Tatsuo and Rimei followed. At the other end of the clearing, the ashigaru seemed to be fighting
among themselves.
“Traitors!” Heki exclaimed. “Those are the missing ashigaru!”
Shuichi shouted, pointing, “We must keep them away from the lumber!”
Tatsuo dashed behind and around a stack of logs, drawing his sword as he went. All of his
training screamed for him to protect his shugenja, but he throttled the urge to stand next to her. The
best way to ensure Rimei’s safety was to dispatch the attackers as quickly as possible. There was an
ashigaru standing at the end of the stack, watching the crowd, and Tatsuo stopped next to him. “You!
Why aren’t you helping?”
The ashigaru turned around and for the second time that day, Tatsuo was nearly impaled on
a spear. He evaded the blow and saw there was something odd about the man’s eyes. It was as if the
eyelids and surrounding skin had been blackened with charcoal. As he moved in for a killing blow,
he saw that it wasn't charcoal at all-the man's eyes were staring, wide open, and covered in crawling
flies.
Long years of training allowed Tatsuo to follow through on his blow, even as his stomach
churned. His sword swept through the abdomen of his opponent, felling him. Then, he started to get
back up. Tatsuo ducked under his blow and cut again, this time shearing off one of its arms. The
dead ashigaru staggered but did not fall, and he lurched forward with his remaining arm extended.
Tatsuo slashed at his wrist and then launched a second, stronger cut at the neck. The head toppled
off into the dirt, and the body collapsed beside it.
A sweep of his gaze across the clearing showed that matters had not improved. Another
undead ashigaru was attacking Rimei, though it hadn't managed to harm her yet. Heki was battling
two at once. Shuichi was fending off another. The remaining living ashigaru had arranged

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themselves in a circle and were battling their erstwhile comrades. As Tatsuo watched, two more
bodies rose up and started toward him.
He would have to deal with these before he could go to Rimei’s aid. He stepped forward,
shouting in defiance, and then stared amazed as both of them toppled over with arrows sticking out
of their backs. As they scrambled to get back up, Hiruma Kogoe emerged from the forest with the
Apieshu and the Ishikibel beside her. The serpent people went to the aid of the living ashigaru,
Kogoe drew her sword and ran to Heki’s defense, and Tatsuo moved to support Rimei.
“This is black magic!” Rimei shouted while they fought.
Before Tatsuo could reply, a shriek of pain cut through the noise of battle. He looked around
to see the Ishikibel writhing on the ground with a spear sticking out of its shoulder. Three undead
ashigaru converged on it, and before Tatsuo could act they had run it through with their spears. A
second shriek, this time of fury, came from the edge of the clearing, and he turned to see that the
living ashigaru were now attacking the Apieshu.
“No!” Tatsuo shouted, running toward them. They ignored him, and he realized that there
was nothing he could do—they would not take orders from him, and he could not kill another
Rokugani in defense of an outsider. Before he could appeal to Shuichi, the Apieshu was dead.
With that, a sudden silence descended on the clearing. “Kogoe!” Tatsuo said, approaching
her. “What happened? Why are you here?”
“When the Apieshu returned he said he had found a trail of the Foul in the forest, and the
Ishikibel wanted to track it. I went with them to see what I could learn. When we realized the trail
was heading here, I convinced them to help protect the camp.” There were lines of stress around her
eyes. ”I don’t know how I will explain this to the Shushual.”
“You aren’t explaining anything,” Shuichi said. “You are staying here.”
“But I said I would stay with them.”
“That is a decision for your lord to make, not you,” Shuichi said curtly. “This camp 'is now
unsalvageable; we will take the timber we have and go.”
“They died fighting our battle,” Kogoe argued. “We at least need to send word to their lord
of their death.”
Before Shuichi could reply Heki broke in. “We shall give them an honorable pyre, apart
from the ashigaru. It’s all we have time for.”

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 “I—” Shuichi hesitated. “Agreed. Now go and organize a crew to load up the timber and
another to build the pyres.” His attention shifted to Tatsuo and Rimei. “You have the answer you
were chasing. Now go.”

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Gravel crunched under the Seppun guardsman's feet, shattering the stillness of the Forbidden City.
Shosuro Sadako froze. The guardsman stopped and stared into Sadako’s eyes from less than an arm's
length away.
Sadako oriented herself on the vulnerable gap between the man's dō, the armor protecting
his chest, and the sode plate covering his shoulder. Now she stared back, focusing on the Seppun’s
eyes, ready for them to narrow, or widen, or otherwise show that she’d been compromised. That
was unlikely, but—
The Seppun grunted and turned away. As he withdrew, Sadako heard him say, "It was
nothing... probably just that damned raccoon again.” The conversation continued between the
Seppun and his comrade, another guardsman who’d stood ready some distance away. Sadako waited
as they disappeared from sight, their voices fading.
Finally, silence. Sadako stepped out of the shadows.
—a rush of night air, like emerging from freezing water... blood rushing through her veins,
a cold river branching, over and over... the pressure of the ground against her feet, of the dark
clothing against her skin, of the blacked ninjatō against her palm and fingers—
—and stopped, taking a deep breath of night air to regain her equilibrium. The Shadow
Brands imprinted across her flesh momentarily flared and burned like ice, but she made herself stay
focused on her surroundings. Once, she allowed the wrenching transition from formlessness to form
distract her, and it had nearly left her impaled on the spear of a surprised Lion soldier.
But there were no waiting bushi now, just the profound silence of night in this innermost
sanctum of the Empire.

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 Sadako sheathed her ninjatō and resumed her way toward the Crane Guesthouse. She slipped
easily through the gloom, pausing frequently to listen and look around her. She had to stop beneath
a drooping willow near the moat surrounding the shrine to Hantei-no-Kami, going as still as the
willow’s trunk while another patrol passed nearby. The Shadow Brands tingled as she watched and
waited, but she remained as she was. The guardsmen were distant enough that mundane stealth was
sufficient. There was no need for—
—no breath, no heartbeat, no sense of cold or warmth... no feeling at all. Just identity and
darkness... and each time, it felt like less of the first, and slightly more of the second—
Grimly, Sadako carried on, her tabi-shod feet silent against the ground of the Forbidden City.
Lord Hametsu had given her three tasks to complete tonight, and two of them were done.
In the morning, a certain minor Crane retainer would be found dead in the Chisei District,
as would a particular servant in the Emerald Champion's residence, both apparently of natural
causes. But those tasks were straightforward-easy, even, given that neither target was difficult to
access or well-protected. The final task, the one looming ahead, this was the difficult one, and the
one Lord Hametsu had declared the most important of the three.
And it didn’t involve killing anyone at all.

Isawa Ujina gasped and sat bolt upright. Darkness surrounded him... but just the familiar darkness
of night, nothing more. Untangling himself from twisted bedclothes damp with sweat, he levered
himself up from the futon and crossed to the window. Night shrouded the grounds of the Phoenix
Guesthouse below. Beyond lay the tailored expanse of the Forbidden City, lanterns glowing softly
among the buildings. Beyond that was the chaotic sprawl of Otosan Uchi, and beyond that, the sky.
“It is called Heihō,” the old Ishiken, said, her voice soft in the night. “The Square. Do you
see it?”
Isawa Ujina, who sat cross-legged in damp grass, nodded. “Yes, sensei. I see four stars in
a perfect square, in the House of...” Ujina paused, considering the position of the Moon. “... of the
Serpent.”
“Good. Each of the stars corresponds with an element-Earth in the upper left, Air in the
upper right, Fire to the lower right, and the last is Water. This is an important thing, but not the
most important thing. I want you to consider the dark sky between and around these four stars.”
“Because the darkness is... Void?”

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 His sensei said nothing.
Ujina studied the four stars called Heihō. They did form a square, almost perfectly so. But
his attention quickly fell into the blackness surrounding the four stars. It was an emptiness,
containing nothing... but it also united the four stars, defining their shape, the place of each and the
arrangement of all...
Understanding dawned, an insight so deep he gasped.
But insight was followed by—
Ujina pushed away the memory of the dream and found Heihō, the square of stars. He had
used it countless times as a focus for his meditation, always finding peace and harmony in its stark
but simple perfection.
—by something else, a feeling of falling into deep water, as cold and dark as the sky... of
that vast darkness closing over him, drowning him. And now he was falling... flailing, he reached
desperately back for his sensei, but she was gone. Another woman had taken her place, much
younger, barely more than a girl, her face a perfect arrangement of curves and angles framed by
hair so white it glowed—
“Ninube!”
Ujina reached for Doji Ninube, his betrothed, his beloved... but now she was the one falling,
her perfect face twisted in pain and terror as she plunged into an ocean of nothing, plummeting
away, dwindling to infinite smallness and screaming, screaming the whole time—
Ujina scrubbed a hand across his face. It had just been a dream. So why, then, was he unable
to look upon Heihō now without seeing Ninube’s face, as though it were real and right before him,
but falling away into that cosmic emptiness? He was the Elemental Master of Void. Mastery of his
thoughts was... should be...absolute.
“Something isn’t right,” he said to the square of stars.
Ujina turned back into his bedchamber and glanced at the futon. Its disarray looked bleak
and uninviting, so he began to get dressed instead.

Sadako stopped at the edge of a stand of sugi trees surrounding a small shrine. Across a wide expanse
of immaculately trimmed grass, she could see her destination the magnificent silhouette of the Crane
Guesthouse.

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 She listened. Somewhere to her right, a pair of guardsmen spoke in hushed tones, their feet
scraping against stone. But they were heading away from her, so she turned her attention back to
the open space. It was at least a hundred paces across, absent of cover aside from a statue of the
Kami Hantei. Drawing upon all of her skills, she might be able to reach the statue unseen, and use
it for further concealment. But not only was the risk enormous, the idea of using the Kami’s likeness
in such a pragmatic way... it was distasteful.
Sadako reached into her tenugui, a simple but useful piece of fabric she usually wore as a
mask, but currently used as a belt. The scroll case was still in place, secure.
This scroll case was her third task, and the most important.
See to it that this scroll finds its way to a particular place in the Crane Guesthouse, Lord
Hametsu had said. If you accomplish nothing else, you must accomplish this.
Sadako let go of the-scroll. She could go left or right and work her way around the open
space, but this would bring her close to the other clans’ guest houses in one direction, and the
residences of the Imperial Families in the other. Either approach would be time-consuming, and
risked discovery by the ever-vigilant guardsmen. Dawn was still several hours away, but she would
need all of that time to carry out this final task, and ensure she escaped undetected. The surest way,
therefore, was the most direct.
Sadako fixed her eyes on a distant shadow, one cast by a lantern illuminating the main door
to the Crane Guesthouse. Taking a deep breath, she focused the image of the shadow through a lens
that was her intimate awareness of her Shadow Brands, of their painful tingle as they bore into her
flesh, down to her bones. Then she stepped into the shadow of a sugi tree—
—a rushing away of sensation... no cold or heat, no breath, no touch or feeling, just
blackness like endless water, and she an infinitesimally small mote suspended within it—
—and stepped out of the shadow cast by the lantern in front of the Crane Guesthouse.
Sadako bit back a gasp. For a moment, her head swam and her Brands burned like hot wires
plunged into her flesh.
...identity and darkness... each time less of the first, and slightly more of the second...
Gathering herself, Sadako moved quickly around the side of the building. She sought a
window for a particular room, which was only a short distance from where Satsume’s possessions
were being stored. It should only take minutes, and then she’d be gone, as though she’d never been.

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Isawa Ujina stepped out of the Phoenix Guesthouse and into the cool night. The placid nighttime
stillness of the Forbidden City enveloped him, as it always did. Still, something was amiss,
somewhere...
A pair of guards stopped and bowed. They no doubt found encountering an Elemental Master
surprising... but there were many powerful people in the Forbidden City, all of whom probably
found sleep elusive at one time or another. Ujina acknowledged them and bade them continue their
rounds. But as they withdrew, he considered calling them back, to alert them to...
To what? A vague feeling of unease following a troublesome dream?
Doji Ninube... dwindling to infinite smallness and screaming...
Ujina started walking, his destination nowhere in particular. He was determined, at first, to
push away the remnants of the dream—
Doji Ninube... screaming...
—but it was pointless. His visit tonight to Yume-dō, the Realm of Dreams, simply could not
be denied. So, instead, he sought to remember as much of the dream as he could.
... screaming...
Ujina slowed. Doji Ninube, his first wife, was never far from his thoughts, of course, but he
hadn’t had such a nightmare about her since...
He stopped, not far from the Crane Guesthouse.
Not since she had mysteriously vanished shortly before their marriage. She’d been assumed
kidnapped, but whoever had taken her had just as mysteriously released her, leaving her with no
memory of the ordeal. They'd been married, and soon after Kaede had been born...
“Ah,” Ujina said to the night. “Yes... of course.”
Kaede—now of the Lion Clan—no longer lived in the Phoenix Guesthouse, a reality that
still pulled at him when he passed by her empty apartment. She was gone... and she reminded him
of Ninube so very much—
... her face a perfect arrangement of curves and angles... Ninube, who had died shortly after
Kaede's birth.
Ujina started walking again.
His daughter’s absence had sent him on a journey to Yume-dō this evening, where he had
relived the pain of losing her mother. So nothing was amiss, aside from hurtful memories of his own
past...

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 And yet.
Ujina slowed again and looked at the immaculate lines of the Crane Guesthouse. It looked
no different, but something about it felt wrong. Stopping, he expanded his awareness into the
familiar, restless waters of the Void... but that resolved nothing. The nagging feeling of something
being wrong still plucked at him like a newly chipped tooth.
He resolved to walk a little farther. Perhaps he would wander the gardens encompassing the
Crane Guesthouse. He’d admired them many times beneath the light of Lady Sun, but hadn't yet
experienced their subtle beauty by night. Then, unless something more substantial than the unease
following an unpleasant dream presented itself, he would return to bed and try to reclaim some of
the remaining night as sleep.

Sadako slipped out of the same window through which she' d entered the Crane Guesthouse. She’d
placed the scroll precisely where Lord Hametsu had directed, and now simply had to remove herself
from the Forbidden City, unseen.
She passed quietly among fragrant gardenias and mokusei azaleas, taking great care to avoid
snagging any of the leaves or blossoms as she did. The Crane gardeners favored carpeting their
landscapes with cedar chips, into which her cautious steps fell silent. A particular willow, drooping
over a pond just ahead, marked the limit of the gardens in that direction. Aiming herself that way,
she moved a trifle too close to another azalea, catching a branch against her thigh. She immediately
froze, then prepared to back up, looking around as she did. This was why she saw the approaching
figure before it saw her. On instinct, Sadako stepped back, concentrating on her Shadow Brands
and—
... no breath, no touch or feeling...
—vanishing into... becoming... just another shadow among many in the gardens.

Ujina froze. He had seen movement. Was sure of it. His immediate thought was that it was just
another guard, going about their rounds... but, no. Guards did not lurk in the gloom like thieves.
He started forward, expanding his senses as he did. A part of him considered not doing this,
instead retreating and seeking help. But there was still nothing specific to seek help for. If someone
was concealed in the shadows of the Crane gardens. it would be trivial for Ujina to sense them, no

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matter how stealthy they might be. Nor was there any threat here that he couldn’t deal with, and
with just a flicker of thought, at that.
But there was nothing. The Void was as placid as a still pond, which wasn't surprising in a
place designed for tranquil reflection.
Ujina felt only that same, fleeting disquiet and nothing else. The shadows were empty.
Sighing, he started to turn away.
... her face a perfect arrangement of curves and angles framed. by hair so white it glowed...
Ujina turned slowly back, thinking, l have returned to Yume-dō.
Except he hadn't. This wasn't a dream, nor the memory of a dream Doji Ninube, his beloved
wife, stood just a few paces away, smiling at him.

Sadako saw the man, a Phoenix by his garb, start to turn away... then turn back and look directly at
her. She saw recognition in his eyes. Saw him suddenly start forward, saying, “Ninube?”
Sadako looked past him, at the shadows pooled beneath the distant stand of sugi trees. She
would use her Brands to escape whoever this was, who somehow saw her amid blackness like
endless water, and her an infinitesimally small mote suspended within it.
The man, barely an arm's length away now, reached for Sadako just as she stepped—
—a rushing away of sensation—
—into an utter darkness that swallowed them both.

Was this Kaede, who had come back to the Forbidden City for some reason? No, this was Ninube,
somehow returned to him after all this time. The rest of the world rushed away as he reached for
her, leaving only the two of them surrounded by an infinity of night. Joyful tears welled in his eyes
as he gathered her in his arms, holding her close so she could never be taken from him again...
And then she was gone, and he was falling... falling into deep water, as cold and dark as the
sky... a vast darkness closing over him, drowning him.

Shosuro Sadako knelt under the sugi trees. She had no memory of getting here. There had been a
man, confronting her... her hand, instinctively reaching for her ninjatō... then the darkness had
swallowed both of them, and now she was here.

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 She took a breath. Tried to remember. Had she killed him? But there was no blood on the
ninjatō’s blade. Nor was there a body... not here or, she knew, outside of the Crane Guesthouse.
He was gone—whoever he was.
Shaking, Sadako stood. Shock and regret and second-guessing could wait. Her mission
apparently hadn't been compromised, but neither had she yet completed it.
She set off through the darkness. Her Brands tingled—
—less of the first, and slightly more of the second—
—but she gritted her teeth and ignored them.
By the time Lady Sun drove away the night, Shosuro Sadako was far away from the
Forbidden City.

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The priests didn’t know what had angered the kami of Hōseki Pond Shrine, only that their lives had
been in mortal danger when it expelled them from the worship hall. They described the incident in
vivid detail: offerings erupting into flame, scrolls knocked from shelves, porcelain icons smashed,
and the broken rafter that had nearly crushed poor Kichi. Ever since, anyone who stepped inside had
been assaulted by invisible forces. The priests were baffled. The enshrined spirit had never acted
that way before. But then, as Kosori reminded herself, these were only lay priests. They could not
perceive the kami they served, much less discern what they had done to offend it. That was the realm
of shugenja alone. So they wrung their hands uselessly and awaited an Isawa.
Kaito no Isawa Kosori grimaced at the letter as she read it again. She and the other shrine
keepers were to learn as much as they could and keep bystanders safe, but ultimately their
instructions were to await the shugenja’s arrival.
In ten days.
A crash from the worship hall. Another artifact, or a part of the shrine itself, destroyed by
the spirit’s anger. Kosori sighed. Perhaps it was fortunate that she’d permanently lost her voice. This
way, she couldn’t say something disgraceful.
She looked to her attendants, two shrine keepers of the Kaito, vassal family to the Isawa, as
they tried to reassure the trio of distressed priests. One snuck her an exasperated look, and Kosori
returned it. With each day, the kami’s anger was escalating, as were its actions. What would remain
by the time help finally arrived? But there was little to be done about it, with elemental imbalances
across Phoenix lands spreading the Isawa so thin.

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 Kosori crumpled the letter in a tightened fist. I can’t just waste time waiting! Tsukune-sama
wouldn’t wait. She’d leap into a burning building rather than stand idly by!
But without a shugenja, there were limits to what she could do. The Kaito were shrine
keepers, trained to assist priests and protect shrines. Their elevated art was that of the shrine keeper:
wards and charms, medicines and folklore, combat against malicious spirits. Reaching the pinnacle
of their ways, one might become a living shrine in which kami could dwell. But they did not have
the Isawa’s gift. They could not truly commune with the spirits.
And even if she could, her orders were clear. She was a mere vassal of the Isawa. Even with
her new position in the family, could she so boldly defy her masters?
She closed her eyes. Isawa Kaito, Honored Ancestor, please guide your humble servant!
A whinny caught her attention. On the unconsecrated side of the fiery torii arch, a man fed
his horse at the humble traveler’s stable. He had a hooked nose and an angular jaw, and rich brown
eyes that matched his hair. On his purple kimono’s shoulder, an unfurled scroll was depicted in
white. Kosori remembered the mon, the symbol of the Iuchi family, shugenja of the Unicorn Clan.
His horse took a radish from his flat palm, and he patted it on its long snout, then made a series of
quick gestures. The horse watched the movements with deep eyes.
It had only been a month since she’d left Cliffside Shrine. Maezawa did his best as a healer,
but the ki of the meridian itself had been disrupted. When the wound finally healed, Kosori had lost
her voice completely. The grooved scar across her throat was visible to any who looked.
Now she spoke with her hands. She was still learning, of course. The language was just as
complex as spoken Rokugani, but wholly different. It would require years to fully master. But she
knew enough to recognize that the Unicorn had asked his horse not to sway too much in the stall.
He was speaking to it with his hands.
Few others back home knew sign language. She recalled long days spent in silence, people
all around, unable to converse with them. It was lonely. Seeing this stranger now, speaking just as
she did...
She had to approach him.
Kosori had never seen a horse up close. She stared in undisguised wonder as she approached.
The creatures were unkind to roads and increased the cost of maintenance, so only fifty traveling
permits allowing horses on Phoenix roads were issued each year. That this man had obtained one
spoke to his position.

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 The stranger finally noticed her gawking at his mount. She traced a line to her own face and
fluttered her fingers, as if holding a fan. “It is beautiful,” she was saying. She waited, breath held.
He stared at her with a furrowed brow. Her heart sank. Perhaps he wouldn’t understand her after all.
But then he smiled. “She is beautiful,” he replied, patting the horse’s flank. “Her name is
Mayu.”
A grin spread across Kosori’s face. At last! Someone other than her attendants and sensei to
talk with. She traced her own name in the air, drawing the kanji backward.
“Greetings, Kosori-san,” he replied. “I am Iuchi Takeya.” As she bowed, he abruptly jutted
out his open hand. She stared at it awkwardly, unsure of what to do.
He pulled it back with a nervous laugh. “Ah, apologies! Habit.” Something about his laugh
and the way his eyes twinkled made her blush. “I sometimes forget myself.”
Another Isawa would have taken his unbreaking gaze and rustic forward manner to be rude.
But not Kosori. In the city, everyone was polite, and politeness meant never looking directly at
anyone. Because she spoke in gestures, if no-one looked, then she was truly silenced. For days she
had hoped for someone to be rude and look at her.
“This is my first time in these lands,” he confessed. “Are you from around here?”
She did not have the vocabulary to answer, so she just pointed to the horizon, where the
distant mountains of Garanto Province were steeped in the blue of the sky, barely visible.
He chuckled. “Ah. That’s a little off from where I am going.”
“Undertaking the pilgrimage?” she managed.
The Phoenix and Unicorn had an agreement, one that had stood for nearly three hundred
years, that Unicorn samurai could freely travel to the Phoenix’s Shrine of the Ki-Rin without travel
papers. There was no other arrangement like it in the Empire, a sign of friendship between the two
clans.
He nodded. “I am. But before I can continue, I must make offerings here, as my ancestors
once did.” He sighed. “Sadly, it seems no one may enter. I could not help but overhear your shrine’s
troubles.”
Kosori furrowed her brow. The priests wouldn’t let anyone in while the kami was angered—
for their own safety. But Takeya was an Iuchi, a shugenja. Surely it would be different for him!
He absently brushed Mayu’s raven mane. “I offered to help, but...” A smirk touched his
cheek. “Well, it is safe to say, I think the priests might prefer an Isawa.”

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 Wheels spun in Kosori’s head. She asked with her hands, “But you would help, if asked?”
“Is it not a shugenja’s duty?” That settled that. Kosori clapped. Her attendants appeared
instantly. As they knelt, she tried not to smile at Takeya’s surprise in her periphery. “We can wait
no longer. I will take this man with me into the shrine. We will appease the kami. See to the safety
of the priests.”
“Kosori-sama,” one attendant spoke, “our orders are to await the Isawa’s arrival.”
She shook her head. “Our instructions said to ‘await the arrival of the shugenja.’” She
gestured at Takeya. “There is a shugenja right here.”
The two keepers smiled wide.
When they were gone, Takeya cast her a sheepish look. “Somehow I am now under the
impression you are more than you appear, Kosori-san.”
She smiled back and went to get her bow.

Kosori fell back against Takeya’s weight as they clattered to the floor. A solid thud shook the
chamber immediately after. A fallen rafter had smashed through the floor, splintering it and
scattering the offerings. Kosori blinked at the wooden beam. Had Takeya not acted so swiftly, she
would have been crushed.
“Are you all right?” he asked, pushing himself up.
She grabbed his collar and yanked, forcing him flat again, just out of the path of a hurled oil
lantern, which smashed against the wall and coated it in flame.
Takeya scrambled to put it out, smothering the flames with his haori jacket. Kosori rolled to
her feet and reached into her obi for one of her wards. As her fingers grazed the paper, the air went
stale. The spirit had vanished.
Limply, she retrieved the paper ofuda she’d left at the center of the room. The surface was
flawless, the power word perfectly inscribed. It should have bound the spirit to this chamber. What
had gone wrong?
“I suppose the third time isn’t always the lucky one,” Takeya spoke absently.
Kosori grimaced. Ruined offerings were scattered across the inner chamber, hanging
shimenawa ropes severed and scorched, and the kamidana, the shelf and altar that displayed the
icons of the kami, was cast down, the artifacts broken. Three times they had laid out an offering,
with more fail-safes and protective measures in each attempt. A storm had erupted each time.

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 “The kami would never attack a Kaito,” she signed. “Never.”
Takeya scrunched his face at the collapsed rafters. “As you say.”
Well, she couldn’t quite explain that. Although her family enjoyed the kami’s favor, she’d
never encountered one so angry. Perhaps there were limits to the kami’s natural fondness for her
bloodline.
Takeya shook his head at the fallen kamidana. The scroll bearing the kami’s name lay
crumpled at his feet. “This doesn’t make sense. It acts like an invoked kami in all ways, except that
it will not respond to us.” A flash of blue between his fingers caught Kosori’s eye. He was fidgeting
with a strange bauble. “If this is how one spells the name of the Hōseki Pond’s kami, then its true
name should be...”
He paused, seeing where Kosori looked. He quickly closed his hand around the charm.
She did not know how to sign her question, so using her finger, she wrote it on a dropped
sheet with spilled ink. Is that meishōdō?
He was silent for a long while. Her bones vibrated in her skin beneath his scrutiny. He was
judging, considering. Then he finally nodded, dangling the trinket out for her to see: cloudy, set in
bronze, and painted with strange letters.
“My ancestors once cataloged the true names of every kami enshrined along the road to the
Shrine of the Ki-Rin. This is the trinket for the Hōseki Pond kami.”
The little bauble stirred before her eyes. Of meishōdō, she knew only what others had told
her. That it was sorcery, a means by which the Unicorn commanded the kami against their will and
without offerings. The notion that this Iuchi could compel any of the enshrined kami along his route
chilled her blood and filled her with dread.
Kosori signed, “You would command them?”
His brown eyes tilted to the bauble in his palm. “There is more to meishōdō than that. By
invoking the spirit’s true name, the properly trained can use the trinket to directly communicate with
it.” He clasped it as one might a string of prayer beads. “I had hoped to speak directly to the kami
of this shrine. I was going to ask it...”
Hesitation. “...if it knew my father.” His expression softened. “What he was like...”
His words pricked Kosori’s heart and steeped her with shame. To think she had suspected
him of sinister intent, one who would risk his life and well-being to restore balance to a shrine in a
stranger’s land.

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 He grimaced self-deprecatingly with a red face. “It isn’t important. Please forget I said
anything.”
Kosori moved into his vision. “I know how it feels.” And then, timidly, “I hope you get your
answer.”
He nodded, tucking the bauble into his kimono. “Thank you.”
Awkward silence, and then he coughed. “Right.” He gestured at the scorched offerings.
“Curious that the kami of Hōseki Pond would manifest as fire, wouldn’t you say?”
That was curious. The kami was actually the spirit of the mist suspended above the pond. It
was strongest in the morning, when dew coated the butterburs. It could never manifest as flames.
Tsukune’s voice echoed in Kosori’s mind. The elemental imbalance favors the fire kami.
They erupt even after minor offerings. The council says this is the cause of the drought, of the
unseasonable heat...
A crash. Takeya turned. Yet another, from deeper in the shrine. They met one another’s eyes
and nodded. Gathering their things, they cautiously made their way toward the sounds.
The inner sanctum was a high balcony overlooking a marshy pond. Paper streamers fluttered
in the trees surrounding the waters. The evening sky painted the tepid waters in fiery hues, and the
clearing was cast in a thick haze. Kosori felt moisture on her face and the hairs on her forearms
standing stiff. In the absence of teeming bugs and the chirps of frogs, she heard only a strange
buzzing that make her inner ear itch.
“Something’s here,” said Takeya nervously.
With an ear-splitting bang, one of the trees broke, as if split by lightning. Kosori jumped,
her heart skipping several beats. It was only then that she noticed the scorch marks along the stones
and fallen boughs edging the pond. They were scars of a battle.
Ripples trailed along the pond’s surface, as if a tiny hand were tracing lines in the water.
Then came another bang, another crashing tree limb. Takeya drew forth his bauble again and
clenched the amulet by the chain. As it hung, it swayed gently.
Kosori’s eyes darted from the amulet to the pond and back again. It was moving in tandem
with the trailing ripples.
It’s here, she thought. It’s been here the whole time. Then, a revelation.
Gripping her bow, she lifted herself up onto the banister. Her reflection looked up at her
from the shallow waters, three stories below. Takeya rushed forward. “What are you doing!”

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 With her free hand, she signed, “Jumping.”
She stepped off the edge.
A gust pushed against her legs, cushioning her fall. She landed harmlessly. The kami came
to her aid, just as she knew it would. She was a Kaito, and although her gift was not that of the
shugenja, the kami flocked to those who shared her ancestor’s blood. It would not allow her to come
to harm.
And in that instant, she knew that the priests were mistaken. The kami of Hōseki Pond was
not offended, and it was not angry. She spun toward Takeya on the balcony and thrust out two
fingers. He looked confused, but she thrust them out again and again, urgently. Two. Two.
His eyes widened.
“Two spirits.”
What the priests had believed was an angry kami was, in reality, two spirits locked in battle
over the shrine. A battle of invisible wills, raking the walls, breaking the rafters, primordial forces
locked in stormy opposition. The offerings, which would have empowered the kami of the pond,
were being not rejected, but denied by its invisible opponent.
And whatever it was, it was here.
Grim resolution overtook Takeya. “I think I know what we’re up against. I... I can make it
corporeal for a time, but not for long. It will take my full concentration.”
The sky darkened. A wind began to stir the pond at the center. It knows, Kosori thought. It
knows what we’re trying to do.
From within his sleeves, Takeya produced a small charm. From her position, Kosori could
barely make out the lupine silhouette and the glint of silver. A litany of words tumbled from his lips,
musical speech she could not understand. It’s not Rokugani, she realized. Is this meishōdō?
Her back was to the pond when the light burst into being, gilding the balcony in yellow and
casting her shadow against the shrine wall. There was a roaring hearth behind her. Slowly she turned,
eyes watering in the heat, her jaw going slack. Suspended above the pond was torrent of fire
contained within a massive humanoid form. Black smoke poured off its body like spilt ink. Two
narrow ember shards were its eyes.
“It’s a jann,” Takeya called out. “A type of djinn.”
What’s a djinn? came her absent thought.
“Kosori!”

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 A flaming bolt exploded against the wall behind her. Kosori splashed face first into the pond.
She felt searing heat as another passed over her back. She scrambled up, splashing as she ran. A
glance at Takeya confirmed that he could not help her; if he ceased channeling, the creature would
be incorporeal again. She was on her own.
No. She wasn’t. There was Mayu, just visible between the trees. The commotion must have
drawn her here. The horse was agitated, rocking back and forth, approaching and then retreating.
Kosori recalled how Takeya had signed to her before. How much did Mayu know?
Kosori cast Mayu a gesture. “Distract it!”
The horse paused for what felt like several dragging moments, then flung herself into the
pond. As Mayu galloped past, water splashed onto the djinn, erupting into steam against its fiery
skin.
Beneath the crackling flames, Kosori heard a painful scream.
The djinn fixated upon Mayu, flames balling above its hands. Mayu galloped wildly, eyes
glassy and wide, but there seemed to be no panic in her gait. Kosori had no time to wonder at her
ally. She drew forth an arrow and affixed the shaft with a sacred sutra. The water beneath her stirred.
Kami of Hōseki Pond, please hear my prayers...
The djinn showered the clearing with flaming bolts. Blasts singed Mayu’s coat, but she did
not stop.
Kosori ceremoniously strung her bow. We are here to help you. You need not fight this battle
alone...
Thin smoke rose from the wolf amulet in Takeya’s palm. He gritted his teeth. “I can’t do this
much longer!”
The arrow fell into place. Kosori lowered the bow and drew in tandem with her breath.
...Let me be your vessel. Dwell within me and guide this arrow. Together, let us drive this
invader from your home!
She exhaled. The arrow slipped from her fingers. For a moment, Kosori caught a glimpse of
wet dew coating the arrowhead.
In a flash, Kosori’s sight bleached out in white fire. Her mind rattled with wordless screams.
The voice was familiar: she’d heard it before, but she couldn’t quite place where.
Her sight returned slowly. She was hunched low, knees in the pond. The djinn spun in a
conflagration, clawing at its back, where a geyser of golden light bled into the sky. There protruded

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her arrow, impossibly preserved, from the being’s shoulder. The flames of its body weakened as it
flailed, the planted missile repelling its hands with an invisible barrier. With each desperate jerk, it
shed glowing ribbons. She thought of a pricked waterskin, leaking a stream, deflating.
The scream. The voice. It was hers. The djinn howled in her mind with her own lost voice.
It bolted, soaring above the canopy, trailing golden ribbons like a firework. Then, it was
gone, the phantom of her own voice silenced.
Takeya collapsed against the balcony, the wolf amulet clattering to the floor. He blew on the
blistering skin of his palm and allowed himself a few breaths before calling out, his voice filled with
concern. But Kosori was not injured. She was grinning, droplets of dew forming on the tips of her
fingers as Mayu cantered around her in playful circles.

It was only a day after the shrine’s restoration when the carrier dove returned with a reply. The tiny
seal of the Council of Elemental Masters made Kosori’s heart skip, but instead of a rebuke, the letter
congratulated her on restoring the shrine’s balance. From her report, the council felt that the Kaito’s
skills could be further utilized to help restore the harmony of the lands. She was to seek Shiba
Tsukune at Shiro Gisu at her earliest convenience to discuss how this goal could be realized.
But it was some time before she could complete the letter. She kept rereading the first line.
It addressed her as “Kaito Kosori of Cliffside Shrine.”
Not “Kaito no Isawa Kosori.” Kaito Kosori. This was not the convention by which one
addressed a mere vassal of the family. There was only one reason they would do this. Even so, she
could not comprehend it.
A second letter arrived only moments later. The calligraphy, modest but confident, was
clearly that of Shiba Tsukune. Kosori consumed the words with widening eyes.

Kosori-san,
It seems the council finally agrees with me. Thanks to your recent feats, similar victories by
other esteemed Kaito throughout our lands, and Tadaka’s kind words that finally turned the hearts
of the council, they now acknowledge what I have known all along to be true. The papers
establishing the Kaito’s new domain are underway, and soon I will present the council’s decision
to the Imperial Court to be acknowledged by all.

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 I fear we’ve done you no favors. Although the Kaito will enjoy more prestige and a greater
role in the clan, there will also be more responsibility, and new hardships await the Kaito as a fully
fledged Great Clan family. Perhaps better than anyone, I can tell you there are some things for
which we can never be fully prepared.
But I know you can do this. I believe in you, Kosori. No matter how hard it may seem, know
that I will always stand beside you. Together, let’s both do our best.
We shall talk soon. You should commission a formal kamishimo. I suspect you will need it.
As we said to Tetsu on the day of his first promotion, “Congratulations. I am very sorry.”
– Shiba Tsukune

Kosori ran from her tent on joyful feet, the celebratory cheers of her attendants and praises
of their ancestral founder falling away. Like an arrow, her family was rising in the world. There was
much to come from this, much to be sorted out, but for now, none of that was important. First things
first. She had to tell Takeya.
There was much she needed to tell him. That she was the daimyō of the Kaito family. That
he had changed her mind regarding meishōdō. That she wanted him to accompany her to Shiro Gisu.
It was on his way, after all. The thought broadened her smile. Perhaps she could learn more about
him. That would be nice.
He was in the stable, affixing the saddle to Mayu’s back. The horse looked to her in lazy
recognition, then back to her master. Kosori assailed Takeya with excited gestures. “I have news!
It’s important!”
Takeyu turned away. “Hello, Kosori-san.”
She stopped. His voice was cold. She brought herself into his vision. His expression was
flat, his eyes distant. Only then did she notice his full pack and traveling cloak.
“You’re leaving?” she signed. He’d said he was going to stay until the shrine was repaired,
until he could properly commune with the pond kami. “What about your question?”
“I’m going home,” he said.
She stared, uncomprehending.
“I am forbidden from entering the shrine,” he continued. “It seems the priests believe I
brought the ‘demon’ here. That it followed me.” He glared at Kosori. “How did they get that
impression, I wonder?”

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 Horror washed over Kosori like a wet blanket. In her report to the council, she’d named
Takeyu and meishōdō specifically, meaning to praise him. But there was no kanji for “djinn,” no
way to describe the spirit in the rural dialect, the only writing she knew. So she invented a word:
“Gai-yu-ki.” Outsider demon.
She’d used the same kanji used for gaijin.
“I will correct them!” she insisted.
“It does not matter,” he replied. “Magistrates are coming to arrest me for sacrilege. I must
be gone before they arrive.” He lifted himself into the saddle.
Kosori moved in front of the horse. “Wait! Wait!” She wanted to tell him that she had not
blamed him, that the priests had drawn their own conclusions. But she didn’t know the words. And
she had no voice.
Takeyu’s eyes narrowed. “Do you believe I am at fault for what happened here?”
She shook her head. No! She thought. No, I don’t!
“Your report—where did it say the djinn came from?”
She hesitated. Then looked away.
His lands. The report said, truthfully, that the spirit was from the Iuchi provinces. Takeya
was able to identify it because it had come from the lands of his people. It was retreating toward
Unicorn lands. They’d discovered that together.
But that didn’t mean she blamed him! She looked up one final time, as if all she wanted to
say, her eyes could speak where her hands could not. That he’d understand.
Takeya closed his eyes. “Mother was right. In spite of the Emperor’s judgment, the Phoenix
would still see our traditions outlawed.”
Her eyes widened. No! No!
Mayu turned, casting Takeya’s back to Kosori. “No one will even try to understand us. Why
should they bother?
“We are but outsiders to them.”
Mayu galloped at a wordless command, leaving Kosori in a dust cloud. She felt like a banner
fraying helplessly in the wind. Because of her ignorance, she’d driven away one who would have
been her ally. And perhaps her friend.
If only she had known better, chosen her words more wisely, it would not have come to this.
But there was nothing to be done about it. A bell could not be unrung.

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An arrow, once released, would never return on its own.

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Fourth Day of the Month of Doji

Iuchi Shahai burst into the Imperial Gardens, then immediately slowed her pace to a sedate walk.
Powder as white as porcelain covered her face, concealing the ragged flush of her cheeks. Her years
of spiritual training held her face as still as a mask, a perfect example of samurai decorum. Yet
despite all this, the burning, welling sensation in her eyes blurred the flowers of the garden beyond
recognition.
She walked the garden’s paths, navigating the hazy view by instinct until the artfully hued
flowers, melted by her emotion, resolved at last into the face of her father.
She had last seen him in Gatherer of Winds Castle. He had held court not to honor her, nor
to announce an engagement, nor to feast her ascension to a new level of mastery, but to be present
at her utter destruction.
She knelt with her head bowed to the floor while the unwanted stares of hundreds of eyes
crawled across her back. Though filled to capacity, the room felt empty, devoid of anything save the
occasional whisper of a silk kimono. She could try to scream, but no one would hear; it would be
improper to notice such an outburst, no matter how justified. It was a nightmare.
Quiet footsteps ascended the steps next to the dais, and a voice softly called her name. She
rose from her bow but remained kneeling. On the dais sat Iuchi Daiyu—her father and her daimyō.
A Seppun courtier kneeled to one side of the dais, facing her.
“Lady Iuchi Shahai,” said the herald joylessly, “you are invited to the Imperial City to live
as an honored guest of the Emperor in his very household. You bring honor to your clan to be such

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an esteemed guest, you whose company His Majesty so desires. People will speak for generations
of your faithfulness to your duty and the wisdom of your teachings in the Eternal Palace, and you
will find your rest within its walls and gardens.”
Such pretty language—like a katana: artful, yet created to destroy. She, the honored guest
of the Emperor, whom she would never be allowed to see. Housed in quarters with bodyguards to
ensure she was safe from assassins—and secure from ever leaving the city again. Her life would be
protected at all costs, for she was honored to serve the Emperor by spilling her people’s most closely
guarded secrets, becoming a traitor to her clan, her family, and her father. Forced to break her
oaths, she would teach the names of the world to the Seppun family, those who had guaranteed the
safety of the Imperial family for a thousand years, and who feared and coveted the foreign magic of
the Unicorn Clan.
She looked at her father, who once would have held her close, protecting her from the teasing
of her half siblings, tending to the pain of a scraped knee, or reassuring her after a wicked dream.
He looked back... not at her, but at the center of the space she occupied. Space that would soon be
empty. His eyes stared blandly, as if he were watching a poorly written play. Even his hand,
normally expressive and active with minor flourishes, rested with perfect stillness on the armrest of
his throne.
The courtier politely cleared his throat, nudging her for a response.
She dropped her eyes. “I am—” Am what? Happy to go? Ready to do the Emperor’s
bidding? Eager to live as an Imperial guest? The willing servant of the court? Honored by having
been selected? No, none of these. They were all lies.
“I am under the Emperor’s authority,” she said at last. A pause, then she murmured, “And
I will do all I can.” It was the truth, but it promised nothing. She bowed again.
The courtier extended his arm, holding out the Imperial summons. Shahai arose and
extended her hands to take it reverentially. She bowed again, paced backward several steps, and
bowed one last time. Her father’s position had not changed, nor had his glance, staring
disinterestedly into the empty space where his daughter had once knelt before him.
When would she see this court room again? Her father again? In a sense, it didn’t matter,
because nothing would ever be the same. Without a glance back, she left the chamber, looking
neither to the right nor to the left. She walked straight to her steed, intending to leave immediately
before her emotions got the better of her.

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 Hot tears spilled out of her memory and onto her cheeks. I thought I left my heart behind,
but I can still feel it breaking. She snapped her fan open by reflex and covered her face, swallowing
down the sobs that threatened to erupt from her throat. Once she could draw a tattered breath again,
she daubed her face with the sleeve of her kimono, removing the tears and no small amount of
powder. I can’t do anything right, can I? She wiped the rest of the powder off as well.
Looking up, she was relieved to find herself alone at the end of a small side path. She glanced
about. No one had seen her lose her composure.
Then she looked at the path again, at how it ended in moist, dark soil that one was not allowed
to step into.
A dead end, she mused. How fitting.

Sixth Day of the Month of Doji

Iuchi Shahai strode into the Imperial Gardens, then slowed her pace to a sedate walk. It was such a
relief to be away from her personal servants, a trio of handmaidens whom she had already dubbed
“the stable hands.” It was their job to provide for her needs and conceal from her the fact that she
was nothing more than a prize animal stuck in a stall, a goat to be milked of all her knowledge until
she was fit only to be slaughtered. For her sanity, she’d have to carefully carve out time away from
them. As much time as possible.
If only she could burn these gardens, see them all consumed in smoke and ash... destroy
something precious to the Imperials the way that they had destroyed her family. But the gardens
were the best refuge she could find. They were too manicured to feel like the wide outdoors, but at
least the trees, bushes, and reeds helped conceal the fact that she was surrounded by the stone walls
of the Emperor’s palace, the very gates of which were barred to her, making the entirety of the
palace grounds her prison.
It might have seemed like a very large prison to some, but she had galloped the endless
plains. She turned her face upward, toward the Nameless Sky. If only she could leave the entire
Imperial City behind, like a small clutch of stones huddled by the banks of a muddy river. To ride
again like the wind...
Yes, despite appearances, the Imperial Palace in Otosan Uchi was in fact a very small prison,
and bonds of “welcome” and “generosity” and “honor” chained her as surely as would iron.

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 She found herself again at the dead end from two days ago. Somehow it was already her
spot, her place in the gardens. A place where she could try to unravel... everything.
So this is what it feels like for your life to end.
This is what it feels like: nothing.
Not the nothingness of the Void, not the peace of no-thought, not at all like the perfect inner
stillness of meditation and clarity. She had found that profound balance—that gentle, spinning
stillness—twice in all her meditations, and she feared she might never know that peace again.
No, this was the emptiness of nightmare. The emptiness of eternally falling. The emptiness
of grief—the hollowness of grief when one has no one with whom to share it. The emptiness of
being cut off from the world, yet still being able to see it. The emptiness of your father’s eyes
showing no sorrow as you are cast into a tar pit, there to starve and die of thirst and sink, rotting,
into the blackness.
And yet, somehow it all made sense. The Emperor naming her as an honored guest when he
had no intention of seeing her. The Seppun stable hands lavishing their generosity on a prisoner.
The Imperial Court, finding mortal danger to the Empire itself in the form of a young Unicorn
maiden. A life crushed with smiles and bows and banquets and all the wonderful facets of courtliness
and Bushidō.
She was truly alone. The Imperial Court would not trust her to betray her people. Her people
would not trust her to keep their secrets. No one was left; she would have to forge her own path.
Her siblings—all three—appeared, walking toward her: Shinjo Shono, Shinjo Haruko, and
Shinjo Yasamura.
Half siblings, she reminded herself. Altansarnai’s blood did not flow in her veins.
She was trapped at the dead end, could not depart from their presence without losing face.
Her eyes darted, taking in the awkwardness of their expressions, the uncomfortable shifting in their
stances. She knew them so well, but she could not think of why they might be here, unless...
“Sister,” said Shono, “we have a gift for you.” Using both hands, he held out a blade with
an antler handle.
Shahai’s mind reeled with outlandish conjectures. “I—I cannot accept,” she said. “Such a
fine blade should be given to one more likely to have need of it than I.”
“We had it made especially for you,” said Haruko, displaying a similar blade, “as our sister.
We made one for each of us.”

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 Shahai shook her head. “I am not worthy of such a—”
Yasamura leaned in, his easy manner quelling her protestations. “You,” he said, gesturing
to encompass Shahai and the others, “are always... one of us.” He nodded. “You will accept our
gift, sister.”
With trembling hands, she reached out and accepted the offering. She smiled, her hopes and
fears twisting it to a rictus. She wanted to thank them. More so, she wanted to believe them.
But she didn’t dare raise her eyes to find out.

Eighteenth Day of the Month of Doji

Iuchi Shahai drifted into the Imperial Gardens, then increased her pace to a sedate walk. She strolled
slowly, always down the middle of the path. The earthy scent smelled faintly of home.
To which she could never return.
But she could have her small revenges. Through “accidents,” deliberate misunderstandings,
and well-timed fits of rage, she did everything she could in her daily life to ensure that the stable
hands always had a lot to muck out.
As she walked, others in the gardens found convenient reasons to take a different branch in
the winding paths or turn onto a grassy verge to sit on a bench, or even to study a blossom very,
very closely—whatever they had to do to avoid interacting with her. They all knew why she was
there. The entire city knew why she was there. They feared her, scorned her, looked upon her with
disgust, but if that meant they left her alone to her thoughts, then that was fine.
That very morning she had been instructed to start teaching a trio of the Seppun shugenja
the most basic concepts of meishōdō. The blade had finally fallen, the time had come, her doom was
upon her.
She had been taught amazing secrets by her instructors. Her father—and Grandfather Iuchi—
had trusted her. Embraced her. How could she preserve the secret names without disobeying the
Emperor’s personal command? She could find no answer to that puzzle.
To buy time, she made plans: plans to be incomplete in her instruction, plans to use terms
that would confound the untrained ear, plans to phrase things in just such a way that her students
would likely make a wrong assumption. She had to appear as though she were sincerely helping, of
course, lest they figure out she was defying the Emperor’s edict. However, if her students were slow

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to learn and prone to mistakes—why then, a few well-placed temper tantrums could ruin several
days’ work, and maybe even get them replaced. Then she could start the cycle again.
But how long she could prolong it? How long she could delay teaching them how to bind
and compel a spirit by name before her duplicity was found out?
A shadow fell across her path and she stopped abruptly. A dour samurai stood just enough
out of her path to avoid actually blocking her, but so close that she had to acknowledge his presence.
She quickly appraised the hand casually resting atop the silk-wrapped hilt of his katana, the quiet
look in his eyes, and the Seppun family imagery artfully sewn into his brown kimono. He bowed,
and she returned the motion. She looked past him and bowed more deeply at the young man a few
steps farther down the path.
“Your Highness,” she said in her most perfect porcelain voice, balancing fear and familiarity.
“Again we meet in your beautiful gardens.”
“Iuchi Shahai-sama,” said he with a smile. “It... might happen less often were you not so
predictable.”
The prince’s good favor could help her forestall her fate. They’d had this conversation
before. She forced a coy giggle, and permitted herself the slightest hint of familiarity toward him.
“My prince is very kind to take notice of one small guest among the many courtiers and petitioners
who seek his favor.”
“Favor... yes.” He looked around. “It’s... well, I... every day I see a vision of sadness glide
through the garden like a ghost wrapped in iris and lavender.” He inhaled sharply. “How can I not
take notice?” He clapped his hands, rubbed his palms together. “Well, Sanosuke-san, let us leave
the young lady to... admire the gardens in peace.”
Shahai stepped to the side and bowed deeply as the prince and his bodyguard walked past,
neither making any further acknowledgement of her presence. She looked in their direction once
they were out of sight. “He speaks such pretty words,” she murmured to herself. She shook her head.
He was probably practicing the oratory taught by some ancient Seppun appointee.
Worthless, all of them.
She continued on her way. The gardens were pretty too, to be sure, although in that perfectly
balanced, artfully arranged, overly painted geisha sort of way.
She found her way back to her place, her dead end. As she stopped, a smirk curled her lips.
Even here, they couldn’t make things perfect. There, to the side of the path, footprints in the damp

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soil strayed into the margins. One of many such imperfections she had seen while walking in the
garden over the past two weeks.
In this place, though, in the dead end, the sight of them brought a hot tear to her eye. Out
there, mud flying from a galloping hoof was a sign of freedom. Here, to stray off the path even a
footstep was considered unthinkable, a blemish to be cleaned up and covered over. Just like... me.
Footprints in the mud
Here despoil the perfection
They must be buried

Fourth Day of the Month of Shiba

Iuchi Shahai glided smoothly into the Imperial Gardens, her kimono whispering behind her. She
passed slowly along the paths like a swan, arriving at last at her favorite spot.
She knelt, closed her eyes, and breathed in the scents that perfumed the air. Blooms, grasses,
earth. The plants were still beautiful, even though they, like she, were caged.
“Shahai?”
She started, rose quickly from her kneeling position, turned, and bowed deeply. “My prince,”
she said, her voice clearly flustered. “My deepest apologies. I did not hear you approach.”
“Indeed. You looked to be in the deepest meditation.”
“I, um—yes, I was,” she said, still looking down. She pulled a shock of hanging hair back
behind her ear, using the move to mask wiping a tear from her face.
He canted his head. “What were you meditating on?”
“Nothing,” she replied quietly.
Sanosuke bristled. “The prince asked you a question.”
Daisetsu raised his hand again. “The young lady said she was meditating on nothing, and I
believe her.”
Sanosuke shifted but did not reply.
Daisetsu looked at her attire, her stance, her downcast eyes.
“Is there something my prince requires of me?” asked Shahai.
“What is it that you have in your right hand, Shahai, that you are so carefully trying to hide?”
Shahai stiffened, then, very slowly, she revealed a long, thin, antler-handled blade.

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 Sanosuke glided forward between them, his blade drawn and ready to strike.
“Sanosuke-san,” said Daisetsu quietly, “I asked her to show me.”
“My prince—”
“You may leave us.”
“My sworn duty is to g—”
“To obey your prince.” When Sanosuke did not move, he added, “If she chose to attack, she
might... possibly... kill us both. If you are away, she can only kill me, and her clan will be destroyed
in vengeance.”
“But you are—”
“Not the heir,” said Daisetsu. “Leave us.”
With a great show of objection, Sanosuke sheathed his katana, glowered at Shahai, then
bowed to the prince and departed. Shahai listened as he walked to a position just barely out of sight.
She was sure that Sanosuke could see them through the foliage.
Shahai took a deep breath. “Is there something my prince req—”
“You came here to kill yourself,” said Daisetsu plainly. “A blade through your heart.”
Shahai opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
“Do not try to answer.” They stood there for a long moment in silence.
This is not how the afternoon was supposed to go. She was again lost, lost in nothing, with
no landmarks to guide her. Daisetsu and she together, here in this corner of the garden—
She found her eyes locked to those of Daisetsu. Had he asked her to look at him? She
couldn’t remember...
“You have been brought here to teach the Seppun family your clan’s secrets. This is for the
protection of the Hantei Dynasty, the Emperor’s life, my brother’s, and my own. You are a guest of
my family. Why, then, the path of seppuku?”
“They say it’s for your safety,” she blurted. “Perhaps they even believe it! But teaching our
secrets breaks my every oath. It betrays my very blood! And it puts the Seppun blade at the Unicorn
throat; if they say we are a threat, then all the other clans rally against my people.”
Now you’ve done it. How dare you speak these words aloud?
But...
Daisetsu cocked his head. “I thought as much.” He took a long, slow breath and continued.
“Have you really thought your actions through?”

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 “Better I cut out my own heart than stab my family in the back,” said Shahai, another tear
streaming down her cheek.
“And if you kill yourself, then what? At best, another of your clan is forced to come here
and do what you would not. Probably someone you studied with, a favored student of your master.
And that person would also find themself here, in this garden, meditating on... nothing. But do you
know what is far more likely?”
“I do not, my prince,” answered Shahai.
“That your suicide becomes undeniable proof of the guilt of the Unicorn clan. They would
say that, rather than reveal the evils you participate in, you killed yourself to hide your family’s
great shame.”
“But that’s not true!” yelled Shahai, forgetting herself again. She looked down quickly,
flushing.
“I know. Your clan is a model of Bushidō: compassionate, brave, and loyal.” He sniffed.
“Yet, here you are. I have learned that what we believe is the truth becomes the truth. And they
believe that your clan is a danger.”
“And what do you believe the truth is, my prince?”
“I believe that the... wave in your hair is very beautiful, and without it the Empire would be
diminished. I believe that you love your mother. She was taken from you, yet you wish to take
yourself from everyone else. And I believe that you are playing by their rules.” He gestured at the
beautiful gardens all about. “Consider this place... have you noticed that everyone walks only upon
the paths that were laid out for them hundreds of years ago? The gardens are beautiful, but why are
these the only paths?”
Shahai stood silent. The blade felt heavy in her hand, given to her by... her family. They had
not deserted her.
She shook herself out of her reverie and sheathed it. “My prince is very wise,” she said.
“Forgive me, I did not mean to interrupt; I shall leave you to your meditations,” he said.
“Remind me to tell you the tale of how Kakita won Lady Doji’s heart when next we meet. Good
evening, Lady Iuchi.”
Shahai bowed deeply as the prince turned and left. The edge of his sandal had a smear of
mud clinging to it. The mud left just a hint of a partial footprint on the path as he walked away,
rejoined immediately by his bodyguard.

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 So even the prince wasn’t as perfect as the Imperial Court portrayed him. Whoever was in
charge of his wardrobe should be executed for leaving his sandals soiled so. It looked like he’d
been—
She bent down, picked up a small clod of the dirt, and looked at the color closely. She stood
and looked down the pathway where Daisetsu had gone.
Shahai turned around and looked at the margin, the muddy dirt that edged her dead end.
Then she saw them: a set of footprints in the soft earth, leading off the dead end near a cluster of
rose bushes.
The daylight was fading. She looked about to ensure no one else was near, then stepped off
the path, carefully placing her feet in the prints left for her by Daisetsu. A dozen steps later, she
could see behind the rose bushes that adorned the path. A wild, untamed splash of red roses and
thorny branches, left unkempt where no one would be able to see them, a cascade of red and green
bursting with light and chaos, away from the meticulously designed borders of the garden’s walks.
In the last light of the waning day, the splash of color was as the dawning of the sun.

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On a day like this, doing laundry was almost a pleasure rather than a chore. The wet clothes were
heavy and tiresome to beat with the washing paddle, but with summer’s warmth lying thick in the
sheltered valley, the coolness of the water was refreshing.
Hige was tireless in wielding the paddle, his ropy arms working without pause. He kept time
with the familiar chant: "Shoshi ni kie. Shoshi ni kie." Devotion to the Little Teacher. Yuki had once
asked the monk whether he did so to show that Shinsei, the Little Teacher, was in his thoughts at all
times—after all, some members of the Perfect Land Sect said you must chant the kie at every
possible waking moment if you wanted to achieve salvation. Hige had merely laughed. “No, child,”
he said. “The rhythm just helps me keep these old arms moving when they get tired.”
She liked Hige. He did his part around this hidden village, just like anyone else, but with
less complaint than most.
Two little girls ran down one of the hard-beaten trails between the houses, laughing and
shouting as they chased a runaway ball. Even here, the sight was much rarer than it should be. Some
people in the village said the scarcity of children was another sign of Tengoku's displeasure, the
judgment of the Celestial Heavens against the failings of samurai. But if that were true, why did
peasants also suffer a decline? And why were reduced births confined to Dragon Clan lands, rather
than spreading across the entire Empire? Samurai here were no worse than anywhere else.
Yuki drew breath to ask Hige. He’d proven himself willing, even eager, to discuss
theological matters with her since she arrived in the village some months earlier. But before the
question could pass her lips, hoofbeats interrupted her.

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 Hige stopped the movement of the paddle, one hand rising to shade his eyes. Riders were
entering the valley, people Yuki had never seen before, armored and armed. The woman at their
head wore daishō on her hip. Yuki shrank back against the laundry barrel, but Hige smiled
reassuringly at her. “They are friends, child. If they had not been, our guards would have warned us
before they got this far.”
Despite his words, she kept her chin ducked low as the newcomers came to the central green,
scattering a flock of chickens into a squawking, indignant cloud. The woman with the two swords
was clearly a rōnin; her armor was well cared for, but bore no clan mon. The others with her were a
motley bunch: another monk, this one also a woman; two men with the well fed look of rich
merchants; and several burly peasants bearing spears. All of them, from the ronin down to the
merchants, rode sturdy mountain ponies, whose sure-footed gait could navigate even the roughest
terrain of these northern peaks.
The rōnin cast her gaze around until she spotted Hige. Then she tossed her reins to one of
the merchants and strode directly to the old monk, dropping to one knee and clasping her hand over
the opposite fist in salute. “Sensei. We have much to report.”
Hige set down his paddle and raised her to her feet with gentle hands. “Satto. How many
times must I tell you? There is no need to kneel. We are all equal in the eyes of the Little Teacher.”
So this was Satto. Yuki had heard the name, but never seen her. She had been gone from the
valley since the beginning of winter—on what errand, no one seemed to know. Hige must have, of
course, but Yuki had not been presumptuous enough to pry. The leader of the Perfect Land might
involve himself in the daily life of the village to a remarkable extent, but that did not mean his
followers had the right to know everything he did.
He still deserved deference, though, for his wisdom if not for any inborn status. Yuki said
hesitantly, “Sensei... I can finish this myself, if you are needed elsewhere.”
Her words made Satto twitch with impatient agreement, but Hige smiled. “No, that’s all
right. ‘Do not leave the rice half-boiled, the war half-won’—so said Shinsei, and I’m sure he meant
that to include laundry half-washed, too. Satto, will you aid us? With three pairs of hands it will go
half again as quickly.”

After the laundry had been hung to dry, Hige vanished with Satto, leaving Yuki to sweep out the
steep-roofed farmhouse she shared with eight other members of the Perfect Land. People elsewhere

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in the Empire harbored such absurd notions about the sect and the people who followed it, imagining
every kind of wild thing-that they spent all but one waking hour each day mindlessly chanting the
kie, that every member was required to surrender all personal names and property, that they engaged
in heretical rituals ranging from drunken, frenzied dances to forbidden blood sacrifice.
The truth was far more mundane. As the old adage went: chop wood, carry water. Yuki had
done a lot of wood-chopping and water-carrying since she came to the village.
A shadow eclipsed the bright doorway. She couldn’t see the man’s face, silhouetted as it
was, but she knew that shape. If Hige-sensei was the heart of the village, this man was its strong
right arm. “Ichirō-sempai.”
He carried himself with the martial grace of a rōnin, and bore none of the marks of poor
nutrition or frequent injury that characterized many peasants, but unlike Satto, he wore no swords
at his hip. lchirō said, “Come to the green. You can finish sweeping later.”
She expected Hige to be waiting there on the trampled grass that struggled to survive
underneath so many feet. Perhaps he was going to make some announcement of whatever news
Satto had brought. But when Yuki arrived, she saw neither Hige nor Satto, just one of the men she
had mentally labeled as a merchant.
Ichirō joined the man and said, “They’re all here, Kanbei-san.”
Yuki kept her eyes on the merchant. She'd observed enough already, without having to cast
her gaze around. Every single person there, herself included, was a relative newcomer to the village.
She waited with her hands folded demurely as the merchant called the first of them forward.
Momoe, a woman from Phoenix lands who had fled all the way across the mountains after her family
had been executed for heresy. The merchant drew her aside and spoke to her in a low voice for quite
some time before nodding to Ichirō and calling the next person.
Like many others waiting, Yuki began to murmur the kie. It had a pleasant, meditative
quality to it, even if she didn’t believe for one instant that it had the power to save someone from
the cycle of rebirth.
She let the rhythm of the chant wash that thought away. Yuki believed in the kie. Yuki was
devoted to the Little Teacher, heart and soul; she knew beyond a doubt that he would save her, whisk
her away after death to the Perfect Land where he dwelt, there to achieve enlightenment without the
suffering of life here in the mortal realm. Yuki was snow, cold as ice inside. There was a painful
irony to her name, after seeing her fellow villagers in Masado Mura freeze to death in the harsh

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nights of this past winter, dying because the local daimyō had taken too much of their firewood for
his own use. She’d wondered if it wouldn’t be better for her to freeze as well, to escape this life in
the hope that the next one would be better.
Instead she’d come north, to this hidden village. To where hope lived.
Four people had passed through the questioning without incident. The fifth, Seijin, was a
disgraced Fortunist monk, and for him the merchant Kanbei shook his head. Ichirō pulled Seijin
aside. “What is it?” the monk asked, bewildered.
Ichirō said, ”Only those who are truly pure of faith can be permitted to stay here, so close to
Hige-sensei. Your faith is flawed, just as it was in your days worshipping the spirits called Fortunes.”
“But-no! I am devoted to the Little Teacher, and to Hige-sensei. You cannot send me away!”
His protests did no good. Several other men dragged him off, not too roughly, but not giving
him much chance to resist, either. No one spoke up on his behalf. Even the most foolish or naive
could see what was going on here.
The samurai of Rokugan feared their sect because of the challenge it posed to the Celestial
Order. And while they might speak of honor, many of them would not hesitate to send spies into the
mountains, to infiltrate and ultimately bring down the ones they called heretics.
The job of this merchant was to find any such people and root them out. And if the occasional
believer might be cast forth as a result—well, that was a small price to pay for safety. If Seijin's faith
was true, Shinsei would reward him for it after death.
“Yuki.”
She came forward obediently, without hesitation. Yuki had nothing to hide.
Kanbei consulted a scroll. Her gaze drifted across it; an illiterate peasant woman had no
reason to look away. The handwriting was Ichirō’s. “Masado Mura,” he said. “Yes—it was terrible,
what happened there. I heard that less than half the village survived.”
“A little more than half, sempai,” she corrected him softly. “More would have died, but our
headman let us break down the huts of the families who were gone and use those for fuel.”
“You had a husband?”
She pressed her lips together, bit down until they ached. “Tadao. He didn’t freeze, though.”
The merchant glanced up. "What happened to him?”
“He went mad,” she said emotionlessly. “He attacked the samurai who came to tally the
dead. They cut him down. And when I ran forward, they stabbed me, too.”

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 His gaze sharpened. “Let me see.”
The spear wound that gashed her side was several months old, reduced now to an ugly scar.
They had good healers here in the village-nothing compared to the prayers of shugenja, of course,
but knowledgeable with herbs and charms. Kanbei prodded at it with his thumb, and she recoiled,
drawing her kimono closed once more. “I beg your pardon, sempai.”
He eyed her for a moment, but not with the speculative gaze of a man thinking about sex.
Finally he nodded to Ichirō and called the next name. She did not smile as she went back to her
sweeping.
Her face might be bare, but she was never without a mask.

The village lay quiet under the cloak of night, and the time had come to change one mask for another.
Shosuro Miyako slipped noiselessly from the shared farmhouse. Yuki was never far away;
she still wore simple peasant clothing, and could don that persona again at an instant’s notice. But
it would weaken her masquerade to think of herself in those terms while taking actions that faithful
Yuki would never dream of. Better to keep the two separate, the devout follower of the Perfect
Land's teachings and the Scorpion shinobi sent to investigate that heresy.
Lights burned within the building that had once been the village’s Fortunist shrine. From
everything she had seen and heard, Hige was a sweet and gentle man, but he did not tolerate worship
of the Fortunes or even the ancestors among his followers. Only Shinsei mattered, and the sutra
which promised that those who called on him with a sincere heart would pass after death into
Tengoku, where they could achieve enlightenment under the Little Teacher's own guidance.
Compared to that, all else was mere distraction.
Here in Dragon lands, shrines were often built in the ancient style, raised off the ground like
granaries in an effort to protect the contents from rats—which, ironically, made it easy for Miyako
to creep beneath the platform. She suppressed a wince as her side complained. It might be
blasphemous to say the kami owed her anything, but when she was done with this mission she would
ask for a shugenja to tend to her. If her lord balked, she would remind him that an ugly scar was an
identifying mark—one a shinobi could ill afford.
Voices came through the planks above her. Hige, Ichirō, Satto, and the merchant Kanbei
who had sifted the newcomers for traitors. A few others, some she had come to know during her
time in the village, others probably among those who arrived with Satto.

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 Kanbei was speaking as she settled into position, near to where a knot had fallen from one
of the planks. A thin spear of light came through the hole. “I assumed that too, Hige-sensei-but no.
As near as we can tell, they aren’t mobilizing against us.”
“Then who?” the sect’s leader asked. “I fear that might be misdirection. It is only by
Shinsei’s blessing that we’ve avoided their fury for this long; we all know it must come eventually.”
Satto answered him. “All signs point to the clan's armies marching south.”
Miyako’s eyes widened. In Dragon idiom, “south” wasn’t just a direction. It meant out of
their own clan’s lands. Could the reclusive Dragon truly be planning military action elsewhere in
the Empire?
If so, it cast into shade everything else she’d discovered so far, from the name and
background of the sect’s leader to the fact that the Dragon Clan’s birthrate had declined to alarming
levels. In one strike it paid for everything: her arduous journey from Scorpion lands, the spear she'd
thrust into her own side, the months spent doing chores like a peasant. After centuries of near-total
isolation and quiet, the Dragon were taking action.
But not against the heretics in their mountains. Which meant that something else was going
on... meanwhile, the followers of the Perfect Land had a breathtaking opportunity to strike.
The conversation above her continued, speculating about purpose, timing, whether this
movement was on the orders of the enigmatic Dragon Clan Champion. Then Satto said something
that drew Miyako’s attention like an arrow to a target.
“Ichirō. Are you ready for this? Or do you still feel loyalty toward the man you once called
father?”
Miyako would have stabbed a spear into herself again if it meant being able to see Ichirō’s
face in that moment. But pressing her eye to the knothole above like some kind of inquisitive yōkai
would have been far too dangerous. She closed her eyes instead, focusing all her attention on his
voice.
He didn’t answer immediately. When he spoke at last, his words held the tension not of
deception or uncertainty, but of anger barely held in check. “That man is a liar and a hypocrite. He
claims that by opposing this sect he upholds the Celestial Order—all the while he undermines that
same order. How could I feel any loyalty to a man who lied to me my entire life?”
Miyako’s body remained still, but her thoughts raced. Who was the father they spoke of?
Ichirō carried himself like a man trained for war; she’d assumed he was rōnin born, or a clan bushi

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cast out for some disgrace. He didn’t carry the daishō that marked a samurai’s rank, but given the
philosophy of the Perfect Land, that was understandable.
But it sounded like he had chosen to leave. And also like his father was no mere jizamurai,
but someone of importance. Unfortunately, the name Ichirō meant only “first son,” and was the kind
of name any boy might bear before his gempuku. it told her nothing.
She curled her hands tight, praying to any Fortune whose power might still inhabit the shrine
above that someone would say more.
And perhaps those spirits had not fled after all, for Satto spoke again.
“If you encounter Mirumoto Masashige on the battlefield, will you be able to raise your
sword against him?”
“Yes.” Ichirō's response came quick and fierce. “And I will show him how well I have
learned the lessons he taught me.”
Miyako remained where she was, motionless, barely breathing, as the meeting concluded
and the leaders of the Perfect Land Sect dispersed. She ought to return to her own hut before anyone
woke and noticed Yuki’s absence, but her heart was pounding so loudly she half feared that alone
might disturb them.
Mirumoto Masashige’s lost son. The Scorpion knew he had vanished three years ago, but
not why or where. True to form, the Dragon had kept this secret from slipping out: that Mirumoto
Ichirō had gone to join the followers of the Perfect Land, who condemned samurai for failing in
their duty to Heaven.
She wasn’t due to send a report to Yogo Hiroue for another five days. Was it worth risking
her cover to get word of this out early? No, she had to stay disciplined, especially with Kanbei
watching for traitors. Wait, maintain her masquerade, and see what else she might learn.
By the accusation of his own son, the Mirumoto daimyō was a liar, undermining the Celestial
Order even while he fought the spread of the Perfect Land. It held fascinating possibility.
What her superiors would do with that information, she didn’t know. But if Hige-sensei’s
teachings were correct and this was the Age of Declining Virtue, then the samurai of the Dragon
Clan might deserve what was coming to them.
Her lip curled in annoyance. That was Yuki's thought, not Miyako’s, and shouldn’t be
slipping through unbidden. She had no interest in the theological questions that so obsessed the
Phoenix and the Dragon. Her duty was clear.

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 And right now, her duty was to be a peasant. With a silent, wistful prayer that it might change
soon, Miyako left the space beneath the shrine and returned to Yuki’s life.

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“Keep dancing!”
The exhausted, naked peasants tried to force their bodies into greater motion. Arrows
thudded into the ground next to their feet, encouraging them to jump with new desperation.
Heartsick, Suna looked away. She was supposed to be watching. The rōnin insisted the entire
village watch, because they claimed this was punishment for hiding food. As if there were any food
to hide... this was cruelty, nothing more.
She’d seen it often enough to recognize it.
Movement drew her gaze to the ravaged field beyond the last hut. A banner was approaching.
The rōnin hadn’t noticed, caught up in their vicious entertainment.
The old woman’s shoulders sagged. Lion? Crane? It hardly mattered. Her village had
changed hands three times in the last five years, and every time, things had grown worse.
But the banner wasn’t yellow or blue. It was green. And as it drew closer—fast—she saw
that the emblem on it was a sinuous, twisting shape.
A dragon?

Mitsu bounded to the top of a hut in a single leap, opened his mouth, and breathed.
Flames raked over the heads of the rōnin gathered in the village square. The sudden shock
of his appearance—a half-naked man, covered in tattoos, breathing fire—scattered mercenaries and
peasants alike. The screams of the heimin sent a twinge of regret through his heart. I’ll make amends
afterward.
Right now, other things demanded his attention.

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 The two bushi of his scouting party charged from behind the hut, screaming war cries. When
Mitsu shifted, the hut’s ramshackle thatching sagged dangerously beneath his feet. An image
flickered through his mind, the heir to the Dragon Clan Champion falling ignominiously through a
roof... he leapt down to join his allies before that could happen.
As he landed, the tiger tattoo across his back flared to life, feral energy coursing down his
arms and transforming his hands into claws. This time when Mitsu opened his mouth, what came
out was not fire, but a snarling, guttural roar.
His first blow caught one of the rōnin across the shoulder, shredding the cords of his armor
and raking bloody gouges through his skin. A strike to the chin snapped the man’s head back, and
then Mitsu took control of his sword, tearing it from his opponent’s grasp and hurling it at one of
the others coming to join the fray.
The tiger’s power was both a blessing and a curse. Its ferocity was exhilarating, letting him
cast restraint aside and throw his whole self into the battle, but it kept him from speaking to direct
his allies. They missed a chance to surround one of the rōnin, like wolves cutting the weakest deer
from the herd. The momentum of surprise carried the Dragon through the first stages of the fight,
dropping four mercenaries and sending a fifth staggering out of reach, bleeding and weaponless—
but surprise only took them so far.
The rōnin leader shouted orders to his scattered people, gathering them into a more organized
unit. Even with five down, Mitsu’s little scouting party was still wildly outnumbered, and he
couldn’t breathe fire at them now without burning the village down, too. Wordlessly, he gestured
for his bushi to put their backs to the wall of the nearest hut, while he counted the remaining enemies
and tried to remember how many had been there at the start. Could any of the rōnin have circled
around to flank?
Faint thunder reached his ears, but the sky above was clear.
Mitsu grinned.
A heartbeat later, Mirumoto Hitomi rode into the village like a one-woman army, katana and
wakizashi raised high. Behind her came a score of bushi and ashigaru on foot, back banners
fluttering as they ran. The rōnin didn’t even attempt to stand their ground; they bolted on the spot,
running in every direction available—except toward Mitsu.
He let the tiger’s energy recoil back into the tattoo, tipped a bow toward Hitomi, and went
to coax the peasants out of hiding.

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Hitomi found him talking with the people who had been forced to dance, now decently clothed and
resting in the shade of the village’s granary.
Mitsu saw her pause a short distance away and wrestle her fury under control. The whole
situation was difficult for her, he knew. He was the highest-ranking samurai in the Dragon force,
and he had seen more of the Empire beyond their clan’s borders than all the rest of them combined.
But Mitsu was a monk, not a military leader, so Hitomi was in command—giving orders to a man
who in all other contexts was her social superior.
When she had achieved a stony-faced approximation of calm, she approached.
“We should speak.”
By which she meant, away from the peasants. Mitsu nodded and excused himself. Hitomi
held herself in check until they were past the village edge, standing where no one could overhear
them. Then she locked her hands behind her back and said, “You were supposed to be scouting. Not
attacking random villages.”
Mitsu shrugged. “I scouted, and I saw a group of rōnin torturing peasants. So I took action.”
“On your own. Sending your ashigaru to notify me when it was too late to stop you—because
you knew I would!” A muscle jumped in Hitomi’s jaw.
There was some truth to that, but it wasn’t the whole story. “If I’d waited, those peasants
might have been killed.”
“So?” It came out a snarl. “We are not here for those peasants! We have a greater mission,
given to us by our clan champion, and you have put that in jeopardy!”
She retained enough self-control to show the respect his rank demanded, but her words were
blunt and furious. Mitsu didn’t insult her by pretending he didn’t understand why. They were firmly
in the middle of the disputed territory west of Toshi Ranbo, not far from the Lion city of Oiku—and
they didn’t have permission to be there.
They’d made it this far without mishap, bypassing the Lion-controlled bridge and crossing
the Drowned Merchant River with the help of their shugenja’s prayers. Hitomi thought their army
was large, and by Dragon standards it was—but they were still small enough that if they moved
quickly and kept out of sight, they could escape notice until they reached areas more firmly in Crane
hands, where they had a much better chance of being welcomed.
Stopping to fight rōnin was, he admitted, not good for staying out of sight.

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 Mitsu’s gaze drifted across the field they stood in. Once it been a rice paddy, before someone
had broken the dam that kept the irrigation water from draining away. The low levees marking the
edges of the plots were trampled flat, and here and there dry blades of rice grass spiked the barren
dirt.
When people thought of war, they imagined armies clashing, arrows flying, samurai in
armor, ashigaru with their spears. Mitsu thought about places like this: villages that ought to be
peaceful and fertile, crushed dead underfoot.
He said, “In my travels around the Empire, I’ve seen a great deal of suffering. Some of it is
the will of the kami: floods and famine and drought. There is only so much I can do about that. But
human cruelty?” He spread his hands. “There, I can make a difference. This is what my order has
trained me for, hatamoto: to find the balance between contemplation and action. If I give up on
compassion for fear that helping those in need will bring trouble to me—if I hide from both my
enemy and my duty—then what kind of samurai would I be?”
He couched it in terms of his own honor, but Hitomi couldn’t possibly miss his meaning,
and he didn’t intend for her to. It wasn’t his place to argue with her decision to slip through the
edges of Lion lands to more friendly territory: she was in command, and she had good reasons for
avoiding confrontation. But Mitsu wasn’t about to let her hide from the implications of that decision.
Hitomi’s whole body went rigid. “Those rōnin were hired by the Crane,” she snapped. “The
very same clan we’re relying on to grant us passage. If you’d coordinated with me ahead of time—
if you’d presented your arguments and convinced me this was worth risking our entire actual duty
for—then I could have surrounded the village and made certain none of the rōnin escaped. But as it
stands, one of them got away. I sent scouts to chase him down, but what do you think will happen
if he gets to the Crane first?”
Mitsu controlled a wince. He’d thought this area was still in Lion control, and that the rōnin
were in their pay. Crane involvement—that was a different matter.
He was an ise zumi and master of the Togashi Order, trained through many lifetimes to
channel the power of his tattoos at the right times and places to make a difference—but no amount
of training could guarantee perfect understanding of the world around him. Even now, he made
mistakes.

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 Mitsu didn’t regret his choice, but he understood Hitomi’s anger. Before he could find a way
to apologize for the part he did regret, she pivoted without warning to face the village, hands going
to her blades.
The old woman approaching across the dead field was no kind of threat. In enemy territory,
though, Hitomi was not inclined to take any chances. Mitsu said, “Her name is Suna. She was
helping me tend to the victims.”
Hitomi did not relax.
A polite distance away, Suna halted and lowered herself stiffly to the dirt. “Samurai-sama.
We cannot thank you enough for what you have done. Our humble lives are not worth much, but—
”
Mitsu crossed the gap and lifted her to her feet. The fabric of her kimono was almost as thin
and worn as her skin, well patched with other material. “Grandmother, rise. Those rōnin were brutes
without honor; you should never have had to suffer at their hands.”
She remained half-bent, bobbing up and down in a series of bows as she repeated her
gratitude. “Please, honor us by accepting our poor hospitality for the night. Everything we have is
yours.”
“We will stay,” Hitomi said, surprising Mitsu. “Speak with Mirumoto Akitake, the man
whose armor is lacquered with an image of a mountain. He will make the arrangements.”
Suna creaked through more bows and thanks, then backed away with careful, hobbling steps
across the rough ground. When she was gone, Mitsu said, “That was courteous. I would have
expected you to insist we move on.” The hospitality of this village might very well be less
comfortable than camping in the open. It would still put a burden on the peasants, though—he’d see
what he could get away with contributing from their own supplies.
“I didn’t do it to be courteous,” Hitomi snapped. “It’s close to sunset, and putting a few more
miles between us and whoever comes after us won’t make much of a difference. The only question
is whether it will be the Lion or the Crane.”

When dawn came, it brought a forest of banners in brown and gold.

Mitsu kept his mouth shut, watching Hitomi take the sight in. She’d made preparations the
previous night for the Dragon to defend themselves, but despite Mitsu’s warnings, she’d
underestimated the sheer size of the incoming force.

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 Hitomi’s command contained more people than the Dragon had fielded together in living
memory, but this single group—only a fraction of the total Lion force—outnumbered it
substantially. And it wasn’t just soldiers, either: they traveled with cooks, laundresses, stable hands,
blacksmiths: a whole second army to support the first. The Dragon had their own servants in tow,
but poverty and pragmatics meant that theirs was a fast-moving unit, stripped down to the bare
essentials. What they faced now was a mobile town.
She would never admit that it daunted her. At the age of eight, she’d tried to challenge Hida
Yakamo to a duel over her brother’s death; put her back to a wall, and she would go down fighting,
no matter how bad the odds. But that wouldn’t serve anyone’s purposes right now.
Mitsu spotted a familiar banner among the rest. “Ikoma Tsanuri,” he said.
Hitomi’s gauntleted hands curled into fists. “They are unfamiliar with the capabilities of the
Dragon, especially the ise zumi. If we make use of that—”
“Then at best, only some of us will survive to continue on, and we’ll have antagonized the
Lion even more.” An idea began to take shape in Mitsu’s mind. “You said the rōnin were hired by
the Crane, hatamoto. Let’s make use of that, and ask Ikoma-sama for a parley.”
They met in the same trampled field where he and Hitomi had spoken, in full sight of both
armies. But not standing in the dirt: Lion soldiers brought out tatami mats and swiftly constructed a
low platform for them to kneel on, with cushions, tables, and tea.
Hitomi spent the time preparing in her own way. Mitsu’s rank made diplomatic negotiations
his responsibility, but if he failed, then it would fall to Hitomi to lead the Dragon in fighting their
way free. They were trespassing on another clan’s territory, even if it was under dispute with the
Crane; Tsanuri would be fully within her rights to send them back north, or even slaughter them
where they stood.
“We captured a rōnin late yesterday,” Tsanuri said once the opening pleasantries were
complete. “My captains thought at first that he was mad, talking about a man breathing fire. But I
know your reputation, Togashi-sama. It only surprises me that you would attack a village without
provocation.”
“Is that how he described it?” Mitsu said, covering his anger with amusement. “I thought I
was taking action to protect heimin against the depredations of bandits. Who would have believed
the honorable Crane would hire the kind of mercenaries who make peasants dance naked and shoot
arrows at them for fun?”

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 Tsanuri’s mouth flattened. Good, she hasn’t lost her sense of compassion. Mitsu had met her
once, years ago, not long after she returned from a stint among the Unicorn. Of all the Lion who
might have caught them here, she was far from the worst. “I see,” she said. “This war has caused
many people to behave in uncharacteristic ways. For example, the famously reclusive Dragon Clan
appears to have marched an army into our territory, without making any attempt at arranging for
safe passage. Or did I not receive the message?”
Mitsu contrived to look startled. “Forgive me, Ikoma-sama. As you say, we are reclusive,
and the news we receive is often out of date. This territory is not in the hands of the Crane? And yet
their rōnin were here. How odd.”
The balance was a delicate one. Attributing the disputed land to the Lion’s enemies could be
seen as an insult... but it gave Tsanuri the option of letting this incident pass as a simple
misunderstanding, rather than an act of war.
If she chose to.
She sat impassively, considering. Tsanuri was a patient woman; she’d earned her name as a
child, when she stood atop a black viper for hours to prevent it from striking and killing her. Finally,
she said, “So your business here is with the Crane?”
While the Lion soldiers built their platform and Hitomi prepared for battle, Mitsu had been
preparing in his own way, contemplating the different paths this conversation might take. Now he
smiled. “I imagine, Ikoma-sama, that you have heard tales of the foresight Tengoku has seen fit to
bestow upon our clan champions.”
Everyone knew the tales. The Dragon relied heavily on them, because that sometimes made
it possible for them to get away with actions that would have brought repercussions down on the
head of any other clan. Who wanted to say they went against the will of Tengoku?
Tsanuri nodded warily. “You claim that is your reason for being here?”
“‘The Crane will be forced to turn their sights inward,’” Mitsu quoted. “Those were the
words of Togashi-ue, before he sent us south.”
Tsanuri leaned back, fingers tapping briefly against her knees before she stilled them.
Mitsu’s meditation training stood him in good stead, helping him keep his breath even and unruffled
while she thought.
“You are in Lion territory, not Crane,” she said at last. A necessary declaration: she couldn’t
afford to concede the validity of another clan’s claim, not if the Lion hoped to make Toshi Ranbo

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their own. “But you are not far from their borders. Do you give me your word of honor, Togashi-
sama, that your army does not travel with the purpose of aiding the Crane in their war against my
clan?”
“I do,” Mitsu said without hesitation.
“Ikoma-sama!”
Tsanuri raised one hand, halting her captain’s protest before he could get beyond her name.
Yes, the Heavens had indeed blessed Mitsu, putting her opposite him in this negotiation. “Then I
will permit you to go, so long as you continue eastward and do not turn back. If you are seen
anywhere in Lion lands two days from now, then we will be forced to treat your presence as an
invasion. Do you understand?”
Mitsu bowed, a degree deeper than what etiquette required from a clan champion’s heir to a
commander of her rank. “I thank you for your generosity, Ikoma-sama.”
The tiger-inked skin between his shoulder blades itched as he left the field, but Tsanuri was
far too honorable for treachery; nobody shot him. Hitomi was waiting at the edge of the village. “It
worked?” she said. The words were a question, but her intonation was flat disbelief.
Mitsu nodded. “She believes Togashi-ue sent us here to interfere with the Crane.”
Every word he’d spoken to Ikoma Tsanuri had been true. The clan champion had indeed
seen a vision of the Crane’s future; he had spoken of them turning their sights inward. So far as
Mitsu knew, that had absolutely nothing to with his own mission—but it was hardly his fault if
Tsanuri had drawn incorrect conclusions from what he’d said.
Hitomi blew out a slow breath. “So... we are free to go?”
“As long as we keep traveling east.” Mitsu turned his gaze to the horizon, where Lady Sun
slowly lifted herself higher into the sky. “As you said, hatamoto—our duty lies elsewhere.”

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 An honorable samurai grants their enemy a glorious death.
- Akodo’s Leadership

The rising sun filled the sky with gold, a favorable color. Matsu Mitsuko squinted into the wind,
watching the dark shapes of mounted bushi approach at speed through the morning mist. The spikes
on their helmets made them look more like horned oni than ki-rin. But these were no demons; the
scout had seen the fire-maned unicorn of the Shinjo banners, alongside the ice-blue arrow of the
Minami Kaze. Today, she would face the family she had almost joined. This would be a worthy
challenge, and if she claimed victory with her small force, her name would be remembered well.
She only waited to see who led them, and learn which friend had become her enemy today.
The riders were fast, sending up clouds of dust, but they stopped suddenly, just out of range
of the bows. Between the riders and Hisu Mori Toride, the ground was rocky and uneven,
treacherous for the heavy, armored horses they rode. From this distance she could not make out their
faces, but she could spot the commander by his proud bearing. Shono... She caught her breath,
willing her features to be hard as stone. His horse stood as still as a sculpture beneath him, while the
others dipped their heads or stamped their hooves briefly before their riders could settle them. She
was sure he must have spotted her watching from the wall. His keen eyes missed nothing.
“Near thirty riders,” Hosokawa Tesshū said, moving to stand beside her. “They will not take
the fortress with such a small force.”
“We are here to fight,” Mitsuko said.
“Commander—my apologies, but you haven’t the numbers to face them on the field.”
She said nothing, but slipped down the ladder to where her soldiers waited inside the gate.
They stood in four perfect rows, their faces set with determination, eyes gleaming with anticipation.
Ashigaru all, but Lion ashigaru were worth more than those of any other clan. These peasants were

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loyal to the Matsu, trained to fight in the Sixth Legion. They lacked the skill but not the devotion of
samurai, and were ready to die for their clan. For many of them, this would be their first battle, but
they had been waiting for it their whole lives. They wanted to fight and die, to earn a better life, and
that was what mattered today. Mitsuko had her orders, and she had the Lion heart and stomach for
battle. There was no room for second thoughts.
“My horse,” she commanded, and a heimin led the beast to her side. She placed a palm on
its warm neck, and the head swung toward her with a snort. She nudged it back. It was a gift from
her betrothed, but she preferred to fight with the firm ground under her, relying on nothing but her
own two feet. She swung up into the saddle and held the reins in the Unicorn way that Shono had
taught her, careful that her stance remained relaxed but alert. She would show him that she
remembered.
“Open the gate.”
Her soldiers and the riders would see each other now, each unit taking the measure of the
other. She did not give the signal to advance. She would meet him alone.
“Is this wise?” Tesshu asked, stepping into her path as she started forward. “Unicorn honor
cannot be trusted.”
“You are here to record and report, not to advise,” she said. The historian was far too
presumptuous. She kicked her horse into a trot and he moved aside as she rode out of the gate.
Mitsuko was glad to see Shono mirror her, riding alone from his lines to meet her on the
winding path through the jagged rocks. A wise move—he would try to draw them out of the fortress
if he could, onto clearer ground where his riders had the advantage. He might expect to win
regardless, but he was no fool. He knew the fortress would be difficult to take, and he knew the Lion
aptitude for war; she had schooled him in it herself.
As they neared each other, she almost smiled. Shinjo Shono’s long hair swept behind him in
the breeze. The wind in his hair felt like freedom, he’d told her. They each reined in, two sword
lengths between them. She could see the sky blue of his eyes.
“Matsu Mitsuko,” he called, his voice clear and strong. “The Lion have seized this land
illegally. I demand that you withdraw.”
“Shinjo Shono, as the writ states, we take only what is ours by right.” She paused, lowering
her voice a little. “The Unicorn broke a promise,” she said. “We deserve recompense.”
His eyes fell to the mare she rode, his last gift to her, but he said nothing.

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 “I demand you withdraw,” she said.
“Then I challenge you,” he said. “We two will fight for Hisu Mori Mura.”
She shook her head. It was a noble thought, but an impossible one.
“I have orders,” she told him. “We must hold, to the last soldier. Hisu Mori Mura is ours. To
take it, you will have to kill us all.”
He paused, considering his answer, and she cursed inwardly as the horse shifted beneath her.
Could it feel the tension in her, though she hid it from all else? The wind rose, its touch bitter, and
a sudden gust forced her to blink grit from her eyes. She hoped Shono did not mistake the water in
her eyes for tears. She needed him to be firm in his resolve, as she was, even though a part of her
wished they could both just ride away together, into the wind.
“Then we must kill you all,” he said, his cold eyes on hers.
She nodded briskly. She wanted to say more, but he whipped his horse about quicker than
she could get hers moving, and galloped back to his lines. Mitsuko gritted her teeth and wrenched
the reins, kicking the horse harder than she'd meant to. She raced back to her soldiers and
dismounted. The gates were already closing behind her.
“Hosokawa!” she called, and the man appeared at once. “Watch,” she said, "but if the fortress
is breached, ride hard to deliver the news to Lord Matsu Gohei. Whether we win or lose today, he
must know the war has begun.”
“Of course, Mitsuko-sama,” the jizamurai answered. To record and to ride—this was what
his family had sworn to do for the Ikoma. He bowed quickly and led her horse away.
Mitsuko climbed back to her place on top of the wall, and saw the Unicorn riding back the
way they had come. What would happen if they simply kept going, and did not fight after all? But
it was not to be. With a speed and precision she admired, half wheeled one way and half the other,
hooves thundering as they circled to attack the fortress from two sides. Behind the fortress was the
deserted village they were all here to lay claim to, empty houses that so many would die for today.
The riders remained just beyond the rocks, but each was constantly weaving about, moving in and
out of range.
“Signal arrow, now!” she shouted at the waiting archer, and he fired the whistling arrow into
the air over the enemy.
She raised her fan. Her soldiers were already in position with their bows in hand. The cavalry
charged. When most of the Unicorn came within range she signaled, and arrows rained upon the

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enemy. One horse stumbled and fell, then another, their riders jumping clear. Then Unicorn arrows
sped into the fortress with remarkable accuracy, and the cries of the wounded rang out. She flicked
her fan again and bows fired, but the Unicorn sped out of reach before the volley fell. No arrows
met their mark. If the kami were on her side, the archers on the far side of the fortress had met with
more success.
When they ran out of arrows, she would lead her soldiers out to meet them. Had she Matsu
infantry at her back, she would have done so already. It was a better way to fight, but she had her
orders. The Unicorn riders were coming close again, and a flame seemed to flicker in the palm of
each.
“Fire!” she shouted, before the first arrows fell. She turned to see one soar through a window
into the watchtower. She barked orders and heimin ran to put out the flames. Over the wall, the
riders rode in a random pattern, giving no archers an easy target. She flicked her fan again and more
arrows were wasted on the ground. Had she Ikoma archers, more horses would have fallen.
Another volley of fiery arrows plunged into the fortress—the wooden structure itself was
the target. So the Unicorn were willing to burn the place to the ground rather than let the Lion have
it? She would not wait to be smoked out.
“To the gate!” she called, clambering down the ladder and moving into position before her
unit. She had lost four, that was all. She still had the numbers for the plan to work. As the gate
opened, she led the troops in a chaotic charge over the rocks to meet the horses, knocking the nearest
rider from his saddle with her naginata. She thrust forward and was rewarded by the thud of metal
piercing armor through to flesh. She swung her weapon and took the legs out from a horseless
Unicorn, Scimitar flying from his hand.
“For the Matsu!” Mitsuko shrieked, naginata brandished aloft. “For the Lion!”
Her ashigaru lamed the horses within reach of their long naginata blades, each cut and thrust
an attempt to dismount a rider. More horses fell, their riders rolling to their feet and hacking at the
Lion with their scimitars. Mitsuko leaped into the way as one of her soldiers misjudged his attack
and caught his weapon on part of a saddle, tearing it from his grasp. She jabbed her naginata hard
into the side of an oncoming rider, pushing his body from his horse, and gave her soldier time to
reclaim his sword.
“Redeem yourself!” she shouted, and fought her way through the throng, searching for
Shono. He would be on horseback still, but she could not see him. Did he fear to face her? There

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was a cracking sound as a horse reared and kicked a nearby soldier, breaking his back. She leaped
forward and struck out as the same horse tried to turn, but she lost her footing against a body beneath
her. A flash of gold marked it as another of her own. The Unicorn had lost a handful of horses, but
it wasn’t enough. Everywhere she turned Lion warriors fell, taking as many as they could with them.
Her numbers were dwindling. No one would see the fan now, so she roared at the top of her voice
instead: “Into the village!”
The remaining Lion soldiers, surprising the Unicorn with their uncharacteristic retreat,
clambered and scrambled over the rocks toward the village of Hisu Mori. They had been ready for
her call, they knew the plan their lord had left them. She ran with them, leaping over the rocks,
watching the Unicorn regroup and ride round, realizing her destination. They skirted the rocks, firing
arrows at her soldiers. Two ilI-fated Lion fell, pierced in the back like cowards. She passed their
bodies and darted between the houses as arrows thumped into the ground at her heels.
Riders followed them into the narrow streets, hooves thundering on dry earth that had
hardened into deep furrows. The Lion had already disappeared, taking up their new positions. A
fresh supply of bows and arrows waited, hidden in the peasants’ houses, along with swords taken
from the fortress, untested blades that might earn themselves a name today. Mitsuko waited in a
small shrine, where she had left a dagger as an offering to Bishamon before the dawn. She muttered
a prayer that she might honor her ancestors by dying well today.
“Stay together!” It was Shono’s voice. Mitsuko peered from the dark of the doorway. She
was determined to face him alone. She had been forbidden to accept his challenge, but if she fought
him now no one would dare interfere. She had already fulfilled her mission, whether the Lion gained
victory today or not.
Shono rallied his troops, and they surrounded him as he moved toward the center of the
village. A young woman walked at his side, speaking to him, but Mitsuko could not hear the words.
The woman wore the armor of the Battle Maidens that Mitsuko had driven from this village in the
first place. She might know which streets to avoid with the horses. Best to act now.
Mitsuko raised her fan to catch the light, and at her signal archers shot at close range upon
the cautious band of Unicorn from the surrounding buildings, bloodying many. As Mitsuko stepped
out into the light the arrows stopped, and her warriors flew to engage with their blades. At that
moment a great wind blew through the village, scaring the horses and almost knocking Mitsuko
from her feet. It felt like a warning.

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 “Face me, Shono!” she called, letting the excitement of battle carry away her manners. “Fight
me now!”
He turned toward her, ignoring the battle raging around him, but she could see the pain in
his face, the tightness of his lips, the lines across his brow. His comrades were dying all around him,
but now that he was unobserved, he let compassion soften his eyes. His horse turned its head in her
direction, and she thought Shono would ride to her, but then he deliberately rode away to join the
throng.
“No!” she shrieked, racing after him, cutting down men and horses in her path, a fury upon
her. “Do not prove a coward! You are a Unicorn without honor, just like your mother! You will
fight me!”
She leaped toward him and cut his horse across the legs, sending it crashing to the ground.
Shono was on his feet at once, his scimitar flashing in the air, but she leaped back and tossed her
naginata aside. That gave him pause.
“Now you must fight me,” she said quietly, drawing her katana and flicking it forward.
Shono leaped aside, and brought his blade down toward her, but she rolled away and thrust forward
again, striking the armor at his shoulder but failing to find flesh. His eyes seemed to burn blue, there
was a ferocity in him she had never seen before, mirroring her own. Now both would fight well, and
one would die well.
“Heartless Lion!” he spat as she lunged toward him, and too late she saw the curved blade
she had once teased him for rising up into her path. Her own momentum forced the blade through
her armor and into the soft flesh of her belly. The pain folded her in half, but she kept hold of her
own blade as she fell sideways to the hard ground.
Blood in her mouth, smoke from the burning fortress in her nose. The ground shook with the
pounding of hooves.
The Lion had lost. She had lost. A great rushing in her ears made it impossible to tell if the
battle was over or not, but then Shono knelt beside her and placed her head in his lap. He wouldn't
have done so if there were still soldiers to fight.
“Did you wish for death today?” he asked, the bitterness in his words stinging her. Could he
not see it was necessary? His mother had brought this upon them by her actions. The Lion and
Unicorn were alike in so many ways. If only they shared the Lion's devotion to Bushido. She had
thought Shono understood.

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 She stared up at his face, bright against the pale sky. The Fortunes had blessed his blade over
hers today, but her heart was glad. She had no wish to watch the life bleed from him, the light to
leave his eyes. While she joined her ancestors, he would live on alone, to face the consequences of
his actions, to have impossible decisions thrust upon him.
“We won,” he said sadly. “The village is ours.”
She could not tell if he spoke to her then. His face was turned up, his gaze above her. if only
she could answer, explain her true purpose. By taking the village today, he had begun a war the
Unicorn could not win. She had incited the Unicorn bushi to shed Lion blood. The Emperor himself
could not deny the Lion the right to wage war now. But duty made her mute; she could not warn
him.
He looked at her then. His expression was fierce but his hands, cradling her head, were
gentle. Where had her helmet fallen? Did she still hold her sword? She could not feel her fingers.
“Is this what you wanted?” he asked. “To die by my hand?”
“I wanted,” she managed, and coughed, the jerking of her body more painful now than the
site of her wound. “I wanted to fight alongside you,” she told him. “You are magnificent in battle,
Shono.”
His eyes traveled to her belly, and she saw the pain draw lines about those lovely eyes. She
wanted to tell him to be strong, but he was watching her life bleed away, she could see it in his face.
She had little time left.
“Forgive me,” she whispered. Her grip on life, and her self-control, slipped a little.
Perhaps he did not hear her. Very gently, very slowly, he raised her head enough to shuffle
his knees from under it. He placed her head on the cold ground. He rose and seemed like a giant to
her, so far away, it hurt to look at him. She closed her eyes and listened, past the rush of blood in
her ears, as his steps retreated from her.
When she opened her eyes, he was bending over his horse, putting it out of its misery. She
saw the beast twitch, its belly rise and fall one last time as the life left it. Mitsuko cried out as a
spasm of pain gripped her suddenly, but Shono did not look back. He left her, his dark hair whipping
in the wind behind him, and the last of the living followed him away.
She was left with the bodies of her warriors, the dead horse, and the whistle of the wind
through the nearby shrine.

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Scorpion Clan Novella should be read here. Please go to
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/legend-of-the-five-rings-fiction/products/whispers-
shadow-and-steel/ to purchase the novella.

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Only in the gardens was the Forbidden City quiet enough for Akodo Toturi to work through his
thoughts. Thanks to a successful counteroffensive, the balance of power at Toshi Ranbo was
shifting; meanwhile, the Unicorn had made their own play for Hisu Mori Mura. Matsu Tsuko
awaited the orders to raise all their banners for war—orders he had to give. Poor Kaede’s nightmares
had intensified until the day when her father had mysteriously left Otosan Uchi—
Kaede said that she could not even sense him in the Void. How was that even possible, unless
Lord Ujina had cloaked himself from her on purpose?
Now, she could not sleep at all, and trying only made her headaches and nausea worse. Toturi
could not quiet his own worries and thoughts long enough to fall asleep for more than an hour or so
at time. It was as though he were drifting through a haze, his thoughts spiraling in on themselves, or
leading nowhere at all.
He stopped at the edge of a koi pond surrounded by immaculately trimmed grass. Several
retainers sat in a chashitsu, a tea house, overlooking the pond, while a squad of Seppun Honor
Guards stood at their posts around the clearing.
A lone figure near the pond worked through the movements of a kata: Tiger Stalks His Prey,
an exercise designed to emphasize patience and control through slow, deliberate movements that
echo a great cat on the hunt. It was a basic form, one learned early and used frequently by most
bushi. Yet the practitioner was no young samurai in training, but Hantei XXXVIII, the Emperor of
Rokugan himself.
The Emperor progressed from the kata’s fifth movement to its sixth... its sixth to its seventh.
If it were not above his station, he would have criticized the Emperor’s transition between

351
movements, the placement of his feet, the angle of his shoulders, the tilt of his head. All were slightly
off, motions that should be smooth instead slightly hesitant, even halting. The katana trembled
visibly in his hands. But it was not his place to judge the Son of Heaven.
The Emperor stumbled, losing his balance amid the eighth movement. He caught himself
before toppling over, paused, then began again from the beginning of the seventh movement.
The faces of the attendants and retainers in the tea house were stone, betraying no hint of
disapproval over the Hantei’s struggle.
“My apologies, Akodo-san,” came a voice from just behind Toturi. “It is unfortunate you
had to see that... unseemly display.”
The voice belonged to Hantei Sotorii, the Emperor’s eldest son and heir to the throne.
Another pair of Honor Guard stood behind him, their faces dutifully bland. Toturi immediately
bowed, then straightened and glanced back at the Emperor. The elder Hantei simply continued with
the kata, but one of his attendants in the tea house, a member of the Otomo family, had raised her
fan to cover her face. If she had overheard Sotorii’s remark, then surely the Emperor had, too.
“It rained the day I returned from Toshi Ranbo, your highness,” Toturi said.
The boy gave a puzzled frown. “It rained...?” He shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t
understand, Akodo-san.”
“Since you are apparently offering apologies on behalf of the Heavens, I thought I might
receive one for the rain that made the last portion of my journey so unpleasant.”
Sotorii kept his face very still as he mulled over the words. Toturi simply waited, for the
young Hantei to speak, or leave, or continue whatever he’d been doing before he felt it necessary to
apologize on behalf of the man whose actions and words were sacrosanct.
The confusion on the boy’s face gave way to sudden understanding, and then to a hard, dark
anger. “You presume too much, Akodo-san.”
Toturi bowed deeply. “You are, of course, correct, Your Highness. I do presume too much.
I presume things on behalf of the Heavens, which is wrong and unworthy of me. I hope you will
accept my most sincere apologies.”
Sotorii’s glare intensified. “And I hope you find your tenure as Emerald Champion fulfilling,
Akodo-san... for as long as it lasts.” The young Hantei wheeled and stalked away, his guards falling
in behind him. Toturi held his bow until Sotorii had vanished among a stand of sakura trees shading
one of the several paths path leading away from the koi pond.

352
 Toturi straightened. I should not anger the crown prince, especially amid everything else
going on. He was, after all, heir to the throne. But the boy wasn’t Emperor yet. And his station,
worthy of respect or not, certainly didn’t entitle him to speak poorly of the man who not only was
Emperor, but was also his father—
“Akodo-san.”
Toturi turned again. The Emperor walked toward him, dabbing his face with a snow-white
cloth. A young attendant followed discreetly behind, carrying several more.
Toturi dropped to his knees and prostrated himself in the grass. The Emperor stopped.
“Please, Emerald Champion, rise.”
Toturi did so. “You wished to speak with me, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor nodded and continued wiping his face, which shone with exertion and sweat,
like that of a man who had just labored hard and at length. A kata should be demanding, yes, but
not so much that it left its practitioner looking so... flushed, and so worn out.
The Emperor finally handed the cloth to the attendant, who immediately offered another.
The Emperor waved him away and said, “Indeed I do, Akodo-san, but... not here. You may await
me in the Shrine to the Kami Hantei, while I bathe and refresh myself.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty.”
Toturi bowed and withdrew. As he did, he saw that the Emperor finally did accept another
cloth from the attendant, using it to wipe yet more sweat from his face.

Toturi shifted as he knelt in the Shrine to Hantei, finding a more comfortable position for his legs.
He glanced at the door through which the Emperor would eventually enter, then lifted another scroll
from the pile that had been presented to him by an earnest herald of the Miya family. He could try
to defer the paperwork until another time, when he was more rested, but he had no idea how long
he would be waiting for the Emperor, and no idea whether some new crisis would add to his worries.
The scroll was yet another edict for his review, prior to its promulgation. This one concerned
a revision to the tax rate on barley. It was likely important in its own way, and it certainly seemed
to fall within the purview of the Emerald Champion, the chief enforcer of the Emperor’s law and
therefore also its chief tax collector. The bureaucrats who had drafted it assuredly understood their
craft and the need for such particulars, so he simply affixed his chop to the scroll, endorsing it under

353
his office, and set it to one side of the lacquered table. The next few scrolls were equally esoteric
administrative minutia, and then there was only one scroll left.
Toturi opened it... and frowned.
At the top of the scroll were the customary opening words, “An edict...,” and nothing else.
The remainder of the scroll was as blank as the unadorned walls around him.
Toturi put the scroll aside. An error, obviously: one he would take up with the Miya
functionary who had delivered the scrolls to him. Someone would pay dearly for such an egregious
error, which was unfortunate, but “that which is not perfect is failure” was apparently how the
Imperial bureaucracy worked—
A soft rasp broke the serene silence as the door to the chamber slid open. Toturi had expected
the Miya, not the Emperor himself unceremoniously entering, followed by a young man carrying an
ornate tea service. After receiving Toturi’s obeisance, the Hantei knelt on a cushion on the opposite
side of the room’s only table, then waved a hand toward the Miya.
“I have recently come to enjoy the tea known as Crystal Blossom,” said the Emperor, “which
is grown by the esteemed Dragon. It apparently thrives in their high mountains, but only close to
where the trees give way to the perpetual snows. I hope you find it as pleasant as I do, Akodo-san.”
“I am sure I shall, Your Majesty,” Toturi said, while the Miya laid out the tea service. The
Miya then began the abbreviated form of the tea ceremony, known as chakai. When he had finished,
Toturi sipped the steaming infusion. It was both cloyingly sweet and sharply bitter, and generally
more pungent than pleasant. But he offered a satisfied nod to the Emperor, and another to the Miya,
who bowed deeply, gathered the unneeded pieces of the tea service, and withdrew.
The Hantei no longer looked as flushed as he had in the garden. Now he simply looked...
tired. Tired and... old. Like the older monks with whom Toturi had become acquainted during his
time in the monastery. Even the way the teacup trembled in his hand...
“Now, then,” the Emperor said, setting down the cup and gesturing at the pile of scrolls, “I
trust you have had time to review these documents?”
“I have, Your Majesty.”
Here come the sundry bureaucratic bits and pieces... But the Hantei picked up the strangely
empty scroll and placed it on the table between them.
“Tell me, Akodo-san... what did you think of this one?”

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 Toturi kept his face as blank as the scroll. Surely the Emperor realized there was nothing
written on the paper... did he not?
The Hantei offered a thin smile. “Do not worry, Akodo-san. I am well aware that there is
nothing written here. At least, not yet.”
“I...am sorry, Your Majesty. I do not understand—”
“What are your thoughts regarding Prince Sotorii?”
This time, Toturi couldn’t suppress a startled blink. He took a moment to place his own
teacup down. Was the Emperor testing him? Was this the Hantei’s way of probing into the character
of his new Emerald Champion?
“He is... a determined young man,” Toturi finally offered.
“The perfect response, of course. Perfect in the same way that you could say that I have set
a new standard for the performance of Tiger Stalks His Prey. It is true, but not necessarily flattering.”
“Your Majesty, I—”
The Emperor held up a hand. “That is not a criticism, Akodo-san. It is merely an...
observation.” The Hantei looked at his teacup. “The fact is that my eldest son is not merely
determined. He is arrogant and willful and, dare I say it, can even be cruel.”
Toturi said nothing. It was, of course, the Emperor’s prerogative to say such things about his
son and heir if he wished, but it would be inappropriate for even the Emerald Champion to do more
than simply acknowledge that they had been said—if even that. So he kept his face carefully blank
and simply waited for the Emperor to go on.
“You needn’t respond to that, Akodo-san,” the Hantei said. “You bore some of the brunt of
his behavior just a short time ago.” The Hantei gave a small and rueful smile. “He is no Hantei XVI,
yet I am afraid that Sotorii knows not the path he walks—and where his journey might lead the rest
of the Empire. With proper guidance and tutelage, I believe he might one day become a strong and
capable leader, but...”
“He is young,” Toturi said, “and the young are given to passion, often at the expense of more
considered and thoughtful words and deeds. Learning the wisdom to put aside passion is very much
part of maturing.”
“Indeed. Learning such wisdom should be an incremental and progressive thing,
demonstrated by children as they grow into adults, yes? Yet, in the case of Sotorii...”

355
 The Emperor left his words hanging in the placid air of the shrine. Toturi could reply, You
are right, Your Majesty, he would not be a good Emperor. Certainly not now—and perhaps not
ever. But was it wasn’t Toturi’s place, even as Emerald Champion, to say such a thing. Perhaps he
should just reiterate that Sotorii is young, and yes, he is immature, but he may be able to learn and
grow. And in any case, he is your heir, Your Majesty, so what difference does any of this make?
The silence persisted, gently punctuated by the fitful ring of wind chimes somewhere outside
the shrine. Toturi frantically sought an answer, realizing he had to say... something, even if this
entire conversation seemed somehow inappropriate.
“Your Majesty,” Toturi finally offered, “we have all watched as children grow, becoming
young samurai, and then continuing to mature as they gain years and experience. Some do so very
quickly. Others follow a more... indirect path.” Toturi touched his teacup but didn’t pick it up. “I
am sure that Prince Sotorii will find and follow the path that is right for him...one that will ultimately
lead him to wisdom and thoughtful judgment.”
Inwardly, Toturi winced at his own words. Your wife, Kaede, believes she may be with child,
but is not yet certain... and yet, here you presume to give insight into the maturation of children.
You are presumptuous, just as Sotorii said.
But if the Emperor considered Toturi’s words presumptuous, he gave no sign of it. Instead,
he looked up from his teacup and met the Akodo’s gaze squarely. Toturi had, of course, never made
such direct eye contact with the Hantei before. He noticed now, and with surprise, that the Emperor’s
eyes were clouded, as though thin, pale fog filled the space behind his pupils. But as murky as they
were, sudden purpose still charged them.
“Perhaps you are right, Akodo-san,” the Emperor said. “But we are not discussing some
young samurai of one of the clans. We are discussing the heir to the Throne of Rokugan—an heir
whose father’s frailty seems to increase by the day.” The Emperor paused, and Toturi saw his gaze
flick to the blank scroll, linger there a moment, and then return to meet his own. “Sotorii is not ready
to sit on that throne. My heart tells me that he may never be. I said he was arrogant and willful and
cruel... but it is not just that. There is a darkness within him... a shadow cast across his soul by
something that I do not understand. But if I am, indeed, to soon ascend to the blessed afterlife of
Yomi, then upon that throne he will sit.”

356
 Once again, silence and wind chimes. Should I protest the Emperor’s dire prediction of his
own death? Would that not just ring shallow and patronizing? And should I agree—or disagree—
with the Emperor’s stunningly harsh assessment of his own son?
Still, Toturi needed to say something in response. He opened his mouth, ready to craft what
he hoped would be appropriate words, but the Emperor started speaking again.
“I cannot... will not... allow that to happen. The Empire needs a strong ruler now, perhaps
more than it has in a very long time. But that strength must be tempered with reason, reflection, and
a willingness to listen and consider and compromise. That ruler is not Sotorii. It is my younger son,
Daisetsu.”
Toturi frowned, and his frown deepened as he thought through the trajectory of the
Emperor’s thoughts and words. “I beg your pardon, Your Majesty... are you suggesting that you
would name Prince Daisetsu as your heir, rather than his older brother?”
The Emperor picked up the scroll that was blank, except for the words “An edict,” and placed
it on the table before him. “I am not merely suggesting it, Akodo-san, I am declaring that is my
intent.” He looked up from the scroll, again meeting Toturi’s eyes. “But that is not all. It is my
further intent to abdicate and retire, passing the throne to my younger son. And since he is not yet
of age, he will ascend as Emperor, under the guidance of a regent, someone themself strong and
capable, who can help him become the ruler I believe he can and will be. That regent shall be the
esteemed Bayushi Shoju.”

Toturi stared.
Later, he would acknowledge an unseemly pride in not allowing his mask to drop and reveal
the depth of his shock at the Emperor’s words. In the moment, though, he could only sit and stare at
the Hantei.
The Emperor abdicating... it had only happened a handful of times across history.
Sotorii passed over... how would the tempestuous young man react?
Daisetsu ascending instead, the new Emperor... his gempuku would have to be hastened,
plunging him into adulthood before he was truly ready.
Bayushi Shoju as regent... Bayushi Shoju...!
Sotorii will not be Emperor. Thank the Kami for that.
Yet... is Shoju not the same, although cunning instead of cruel?

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 For the first time in his life, he did not know where this path would lead. But as Emerald
Champion, his path would inevitably be intertwined.
What will I do?
“Your Majesty... this is... momentous. I apologize for requiring a moment to... to consider
it.”
The Emperor nodded. “I understand, Akodo-san. Momentous is an excellent word to
describe what I have just said.”
Toturi looked at his teacup...picked it up...put it down again.
Bayushi Shoju...?
“Your Majesty,” he said, then paused. He was about to say the very shallow and patronizing
thing he stopped himself from saying only a moment ago. But that was before the Emperor had
declared his intent to place the Scorpion Clan Champion on the throne as regent. Taking another
breath, he said, “Is this...necessary? Your reign may yet be long and fruitful—”
“Long?” the Emperor cut in, a wry smile briefly touching his face. “It has already been
blessedly long. My difficulty with Tiger Stalks His Prey is but one symptom of my growing
infirmity... one of an ever-greater multitude of such symptoms.” The smile faded, and the Emperor
looked, if possible, even more drawn and tired than he had before.
“Your Majesty, no shugenja would as much as hesitate to pray on your behalf for health—”
“It is a defiant man who asks the Heavens to forestall his judgment before Emma-Ō.
“Frankly, Akodo-san,” he went on, waving a hand at the scrolls on the table, “I can no longer
read documents such as these. Only if the script is rendered foolishly large can I even hope to discern
what they say.” The Emperor sighed. “If I cannot read, then I must trust solely in the words of my
advisors. And an Emperor so trusting as to have others perceive the world for him—even if out of
necessity—is an Emperor open to manipulation.”
The Hantei shook his head. “No. I cannot allow unfounded optimism, or my own pride, to
stand in the way of what I know, deep within me, is what must be. It is the Empire I am thinking of.
Every day, it seems, heralds arrive with yet more dire news from across Rokugan.” The Emperor
smiled again, but this time it was bleak and humorless. “In myriad ways, Tengoku itself seems to
be saying that the time has come for me to retire.”
“I cannot believe that, Your Majesty.”

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 “How can you not, Akodo-san? Besides the many difficulties facing the clans, there is now
the promise of war among them. Even setting aside the growing conflict between your own clan and
the Crane over Toshi Ranbo, there is the matter of Hisu Mori Mura. Honor would demand that the
defeat of your kin there by the Unicorn must be answered by your clan.”
“Your Majesty—”
“Do you deny it, Akodo-san?”
Toturi folded his hands in his lap. Hosokawa Tesshū had only arrived in the Imperial Capital
two days earlier with news of the battle, so he hadn’t yet decided how to proceed. Except... hadn’t
he? With Hisu Mori Mura coming so soon after the insult of Shinjo Altansarnai’s broken betrothal
to the Ikoma daimyō, did he doubt, really, that the Lion had any choice but to petition the throne for
the right to make war on the Unicorn?
The Emperor shook his head slowly. “Of course you do not deny it, Akodo-san, because you
cannot. And even if you somehow did find a rationale for doing so, do you really believe that your
generals—that your clan—would accept it?”
Toturi finally shook his own head. “No, Your Majesty.”
“There was a time, Akodo-san, when I believe I could have prevented many of these things
troubling the Empire—and mitigated those I could not. But that time is long behind me. Now, I am
an old man, of failing health. If I do nothing, Sotorii will become Emperor upon my passing... and
that shadow upon his soul will spread, I fear, plunging the Empire even further into chaos and
darkness. I cannot allow that to happen.”
Toturi took a long, slow breath and simply stared into his teacup as he considered the
Emperor’s words. He wanted to continue objecting, to persuade the Emperor that he was wrong,
that he should remain on the throne, that abdication and naming his younger son as heir would be
massive upheaval, its outcome unpredictable and dangerous for the Empire...
But.
But, he saw a profound wisdom in the Emperor’s words. Sotorii was dangerous, and in a
way that was predictable. It was more than simply arrogance or a mercurial nature. Samurai once
tried to convince themselves that the young man who would become Hantei XVI, the so-called Steel
Chrysanthemum, was merely arrogant and willful and would, over time, grow into a wise and just
ruler. Instead, he had been cruel, paranoid, and destructive, so much so that his own Seppun guards
and samurai from the clans had finally killed him rather than risk letting his malignant reign tear the

359
Empire apart at its seams. And that had been a time when the Empire was in a place of relative peace
and stability. A new Steel Chrysanthemum, ascending now, could very well plunge Rokugan into a
turmoil from which it might never recover.
So, abdicating and naming Daisetsu his successor was, indeed, the best decision for the
Empire.
But Bayushi Shoju as regent...?
Toturi looked back at the Emperor. “Have you informed anyone else about your intentions,
Your Majesty?”
“I have not. Indeed, I have only recently come to this decision.” The Emperor gave Toturi a
keen look. “Nonetheless, I would hear your thoughts on this, Emerald Champion.”
Toturi nodded at the Emperor’s specific use of his title. He did not wish to hear what Toturi
the man had to say, nor Toturi of the Akodo, nor Toturi, Champion of the Lion Clan.
“Very well, Your Majesty. I see your wisdom in this, despite the potential for disruption and
unrest. I believe Prince Daisetsu would be an excellent Emperor—one who could, with the correct
and appropriate guidance, lead the Empire through this time of troubles and unite it into an age of
peace and prosperity.”
“There will, of course, be those who will see this upending of tradition as an affront,” the
Emperor said. “Some may remain loyal to Sotorii-san regardless.”
“That is a risk, Your Majesty. But like yours, my heart tells me that it is better to unite the
Empire behind Prince Daisetsu in due course, than to more quickly unite it against your eldest son.”
The Emperor looked at Toturi for a moment, then poured more tea into both their cups. “It
is most heartening to hear you say this, Akodo-san. But it is what you do not say that interests me
more.”
Toturi nodded. “I admit, Your Majesty, to profound misgivings about your intent to name
Lord Bayushi as regent.”
The Emperor sipped tea. “And what is the nature of those... misgivings?”
Toturi found himself tensing. He must tread carefully here. Even as Emerald Champion, he
didn’t have free license to denigrate a clan champion. Moreover, he knew that Shoju was the
Emperor’s friend. Perhaps his closest confidant.

360
 “Bayushi,” Toturi said, “is, clearly, a strong and capable leader for his clan. He has placed
the Scorpion into a position of preeminence in the Empire. For that, he is to be respected, even
admired.”
The Emperor nodded and sipped more tea, but said nothing.
“My misgivings arise from that same truth,” Toturi went on. “I am concerned that Lord
Bayushi may find it... difficult... to place the interests of the Empire, and the clans as a whole, above
those of the Scorpion.” He paused, then steeled himself to go on. “And even if he is able to do so, I
am perhaps more concerned that others, in a position to influence him, may not.”
“You speak of Lady Kachiko.”
Not just her, Toturi thought, remembering how Bayushi Aramoro, Shoju’s own half brother,
had sought to cheat at the Test of the Emerald Champion... He thought of others, a legion of them—
Scorpion sycophants, schemers, and manipulators—who would try to benefit from having their
champion effectively upon the throne.
“She is ambitious,” Toturi said. “She will, I think, seek to exploit the power that regency
will give her husband.”
“Could not the same thing be said about virtually anyone I name as regent, Akodo-san? That
there will be those who have their confidence, and could seek to use it for their own interests? For
that matter... isn’t that already true for me?”
Was he hearing Bayushi Kachiko’s words now? She was, after all, the Imperial Advisor, and
had the Emperor’s ear whenever she wished.
...an Emperor so trusting as to have others perceive the world for him—even if out of
necessity—is an Emperor open to manipulation.
Still, there was little point in pursuing this further. The scroll had only appeared blank; the
Emperor had already decided what would be written upon it. Now, Toturi could only seek to shape
and contain what was about to be unleashed upon the Empire.
“Again, Your Majesty, I am humbled by your wisdom,” was all he finally said.
The Emperor nodded and called for a servant to bring him a brush and ink. When they were
placed before him, the Emperor pushed them, and the blank scroll, toward Toturi.
“Just as my eyes have begun to fail me, Akodo-san, so too is my brush too unsteady to write.
And I will not have such an important missive written by any mere functionary. You must write it
for me.”

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 The words nearly knocked him to the floor. Such a momentous order, written not in the
Emperor’s own hand but that of his champion.
Would the other clans see him as manipulator? Had that been Shoju’s plan all along?
He could not write this. But neither could he possibly protest or give voice to those words.
He could not disobey his lord the Emperor.
The Emperor was correct, of course. No mere scribe or bureaucrat could pen this, a document
that promised to shake Rokugan as severely as any earthquake. And coming from the Emerald
Champion, instead of Chancellor Kakita Yoshi or Advisor Bayushi Kachiko... it was the most
neutral option the Emperor had.
Taking a slow breath, Toturi pushed the teacup aside. Arranging the scroll before him, he
dipped the brush into the ink, and as the Emperor began to dictate, Toturi began to write.
The ink of his brush seemed to wound the paper like a sword, leaving trails of black blood
in its wake.
Was this how you felt, Hotaru, when you wrote to me of your sorrow? You did not know
where your words would lead us, but the deed had already been done.
But these words were heavier than even the death of a clan champion—or a brother. This
scroll, this particular piece of paper, was likely the most important he would ever write. No, this
scroll would be the most important one that would be written—during his lifetime, at least.
“An edict...
“...from His August Imperial Majesty, Hantei XXXVIII...”
When finished, the missive was brief, barely filling half the page. It was clearly in Toturi’s
own hand, which Sotorii would no doubt see and recognize. The Emperor retrieved the scroll from
Toturi. “My thanks for your assistance in this, Akodo-san. I shall have this promulgated tomorrow,
in court.” Cloudy eyes met his. “Is there anything else you wish to discuss with me today?”
“No, Your Majesty,” Toturi said, glancing at the scroll.
Right now, there were no other words that mattered more.

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A garish late afternoon sun pierced through the throne room windows, illumining the dark
floorboards in deep mahogany. Two servants, women, washed the floor with white linen on hands
and knees, scuttling like insects back and forth between the dark and light spots. Bayushi Aramoro
growled as he watched them from a shadowy corner. They tried to disregard his presence as they
worked, though one girl noticeably trembled while the other’s skin prickled with nervous sweat.
They wouldn’t have been able to ignore me if I were Emerald Champion.
The humiliation of his loss against Akodo Toturi stung more than the loss of the
championship—everyone at court had seen a Lion beat him. Worse still was that his defeat had
caused a twitch in Lady Kachiko’s composed façade, like a faintest crack in porcelain. Luckily, she
had not turned her disappointment upon him. They both knew his failure had not been his fault.
Aramoro suspected betrayal, but Yojiro was Kachiko’s pet. She would merely torment him rather
than punish him outright. Whatever that coward’s fate, Aramoro’s status was secure despite the loss.
Instead of Emerald Champion, Aramoro maintained his position near Kachiko as her yōjimbō, a
responsibility that kept him closer to her than anyone. He licked his lips.
The servants were starting to linger too long.
Is their work that slovenly? Or, are they loitering for reasons more menacing...
No, they were merely preparing the room for a court assembly that evening, dusting the
windowsills and floor, and polishing the armrests and fluffing the cushions of the ornately carved,
backless rosewood chairs and Emerald Throne for those who would sit there: The Hantei Emperor,
his heir, and Lady Kachiko. Aramoro’s lips ticked with a frown hidden by his crimson oni mempō.

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 During the last few weeks, Scorpion contacts among the less-than-reputable sake houses in
Otosan Uchi had gleaned murmurs of death threats against Lady Kachiko. As Kachiko’s bodyguard,
Aramoro had plunged himself deep into investigating the plot for the last several days, surfacing
with a list of anyone who might have connections to the taverns and access to the palace. The palace
cook who prepared Kachiko’s meals. The two servant girls who cleaned various rooms in the palace.
A lowly courtier who could blend in with the rest of the sycophantic crowd. Invisible people.
Aramoro had hunted each one of them.
Who would dare?
Stories of such traitors hidden in the capital and perhaps throughout other parts of the empire
were emerging from many sources, not just Bayushi’s Whisperers. Aramoro’s chest seared with
anger, and he clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked. Assassination rumors involving powerful
figures were not common. One involving the Emperor’s own personal advisor was inimitable—near
blasphemy against Heaven—marking the conspirators as dangerous beyond expectation.
As Aramoro growled to himself, a surprised gasp came from the door. The Scorpion locked
eyes with a cringing Otomo courtier who had been skulking into the throne room through the open
door. The man was followed by his thick-set, vacant-eyed yōjimbō.
“Otomo Utoshi-san,” Aramoro sneered, a grim pleasure lighting his eyes, “you are several
hours early to court, I see, as one would expect from your zealous groveling.”
Utoshi swallowed hard, but his dry-mouthed reply issued little more than a stutter. “Good
afternoon, Aramoro-san. I was simply...checking the state of the room.”
“Yes, I can see how a chattering monkey invited into a palace ought to check every room,
in case he left any of his refuse behind.”
The blatant insult left the Otomo speechless. He quivered through a polite parting bow and
ducked out of the room. Masao stared briefly after his fleeing master. He eyed Aramoro, a scowl
puckering his forehead, before nodding to him and trudging after his charge. Aramoro sniffed in
amusement. The young yōjimbō, a man named Masao, had recently been paid, rather cheaply, to
spy on the Otomo households. If Utoshi or the other Otomo had any secrets, Aramoro would hear
of it.
Out of the corner of his eye, Aramoro caught movement in the courtyard gardens below. A
flock of courtly ladies sauntered near the lotus pond, their garments and hair ornaments sparkling.
At their forefront strolled a sensuous figure swathed in scarlet and black silk. Despite the shade of

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the parasol poised in her slender hands, this woman glowed. Her regal beauty radiated through the
mob of flamboyant nobles. She suddenly laughed at some comment, and all the other women
followed suit, desperate to be seen joining in on the jest.
Despite her elegance, Aramoro frowned. In every aspect, this woman looked like Lady
Kachiko. The delicate arch of her neck. The full, red mouth. Even her eyes, the same mesmerizing
brown. But the truth marred the picturesque grace, dashing the illusion.
You walk too fast, Asami. Too eagerly. Lady Kachiko never hurries. She walks at her own
pace.
He watched as Asami, Kachiko’s body double, crossed a bridge over the pond with her
impatient steps. Disgusted, Aramoro turned away to glare at the servants. They had gathered their
cleaning implements, lingering only to check for perfection one final time.
“Corpses could leave this room faster than you two,” Aramoro snarled.
Startled, the girls snatched up their cleaning rags and fled, leaving the ornately carved doors
open. They skittered down the hallway, disappearing through a servants’ exit. The sun was setting,
basking the throne room in burnt orange hues. The girls would need to slink back to light the evening
lanterns in another hour or so. However, they were not the threat he sought. He would come back
with Kachiko for the court assembly that evening.
Aramoro took one more look out the window into the garden. The ladies were gone. He left
the throne room, shutting the door behind him.

The door to Lady Kachiko’s sitting room slid open, and Bayushi Yojiro emerged. Aramoro’s jaw
tightened, and he squeezed his katana hilt to prevent himself from seizing Yojiro by the throat. The
high corners of the Emerald Magistrate’s collar failed to hide the blush staining his cheeks.
Confusion. Sorrow. Lust. Awe. Kachiko must have just scolded the wretch, though not nearly
enough for what he deserved. Aramoro wrinkled his nose as they crossed paths.
“Aramoro-san,” Yojiro said, his politeness remembered even in his moment of agitation, “I
do apologize if I kept you waiting.”
“I wait for no one when seeing Lady Kachiko,” Aramoro sneered.
“I can think of one person,” Yojiro replied, Aramoro’s intimidation glancing off his swiftly
rising composure. The magistrate bowed a quick farewell and left.

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 A sharp jealousy swept through Aramoro’s already enraged blood, swelling into wrath.
Yojiro meant Shoju. Of course, Shoju would have more claim to Kachiko. He was their clan
champion. Her husband. His half-brother. The lucky demon.
Aramoro’s hands ached to snap Yojiro’s neck. The fool always acted superior, living above
the rest of their clan with his smug morals.
I should choke the arrogance from him. Perhaps one day, Kachiko will let me do it.
He marched into Kachiko’s chamber and slammed the shoji screen behind him, rattling the
wood and paper. To his greater displeasure, Asami was the one sitting inside with a group of
Kachiko’s ladies-in-waiting. She wore one of Kachiko’s best evening kimono, crimson scattered
with gold and black petals in the shape of scorpion stingers. However, the silk hung awkwardly
around her shoulders, sagging ever so slightly in the front. Her legs and back strained to copy
Kachiko’s naturally seductive posture upon the zabuton. Worst of all, her eyes lit up as he entered,
a desperate excitement that Lady Kachiko would never feel.
Does she really fool the entire court?
The true Kachiko must be busy writing a letter to Hotaru. He would have to give his report
to Asami.
“Aramoro-san,” Asami warbled with Kachiko’s regal air still intact. “You are as punctual as
the sun.”
He sat himself across from her, careful to uphold the respectful posture despite her identity.
“My lady,” he grunted, eyeing the women who sat staring with lacquered faces.
“Ladies, give me some privacy as I attend to matters with my guard,” Asami instructed,
smiling as they rose silently and disappeared into a back room. Her refined, dignified demeanor
abruptly melted away to reveal Asami’s country girl plainness. Her love and devotion paraded more
blatantly across her face. Aramoro grunted, concentrating on Asami’s mouth and throat, the parts of
her that most kept Kachiko’s likeness. The skin was so smooth.
“Aramoro-san,” Asami greeted him again, her voice soft with degraded demureness. “It is
good to see you.”
“Lady Kachiko,” he replied curtly, the misnomer curling his tongue. Asami would pass his
report on to her mistress exactly as he said it, so he would need to temper his disdain lest it be
relayed. “My search for the possible assassin continues. I have investigated the palace servants in

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question. They are mice, not vipers. During tonight’s assembly, I shall search among those at court.
You should stay close to me during the entire assembly, in case something should happen.”
Asami paused, frowning slightly after realizing that his report was over. “What about the
cook?”
“I will search his kitchen tonight after court.”
His wife nodded, not in approval, but in agreement. “Thank you for doing this. I... appreciate
your efforts.”
Aramoro nodded briskly and made to stand, but Asami lifted her hand, entreating him to
stay. “Please, Husband.” The corner of one eye glistened with the trace of tears.
Her break in character startled him. She never did this.
“What is it?”
She choked on her tears once more before continuing. “Our son is ill. I received word of it
from Kyūden Bayushi two days ago.”
Aramoro blinked. “And?”
“I... I thought you might want to know.”
He didn’t have time to be concerned about a child when Lady Kachiko’s life was at stake.
“The clan is taking care of him.”
“Yes, but—” Asami stifled a sob. She bit her full, delicate lip before continuing. “I heard it
is very serious.”
Aramoro stared hard at her.
She asks too much.
“Such distant travel is impossible,” he snapped. “How dare you ask when your life is
threatened?” He tried to return her to character. Even here, it wasn’t safe to break the façade for
long.
Asami steeled her face slightly. “I know my duty, Aramoro,” she insisted sulkily. “My
loyalty is stronger than my love as a mother. I only ask because Shoju-sama commands that you
find the would-be assassins tonight. No more delays, lest you imperil us needlessly.”
Aramoro slid from kneeling to a one-kneed crouch, ready to spring, an enraged fire thrashing
through him. “Shoju commands me to do what I already planned, does he? He wants to parade his
dominion—his triumph—over me?” His eyes narrowed as he chuckled with a dry, wicked laugh at
the irony. “And to do so through the wife I ended up with...”

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 Asami regained some of Kachiko’s manner, a tiny flicker of defiance dancing in her eyes.
“You chose me, Aramoro. You helped me gain entrance into the Scorpion clan through my marriage
to that Yogo emissary. His death is more on your hands than mine.”
Aramoro grunted in response, not denying the past.
I did make my choice—I didn’t smother Shoju in his sleep the night after his engagement to
Kachiko was announced, after he was chosen as clan champion!
He shook his head, shredding the traitorous thought into a thousand black pieces. His clan
meant more to him than a selfish desire. In the end, the Scorpion had severed him from Kachiko,
relegating him to the status of yōjimbō despite his training, his loyalty! He lived with this clan
decision—this burning sacrifice—even when it took marrying a body double farm girl to help him
do it. He sat back down and looked at Asami’s mouth and throat once more.
The mousy sound of footsteps alerted him to the approach of a servant. Asami’s break in
character had been far too dangerous, far too emotional. He would scold her for it later.
“I will do as Shoju commands, Lady Kachiko,” he growled. “You must do the same, here,
in Otosan Uchi, until all the conspirators in the capital have been found and dealt with.”
Asami nodded slowly. “As you say, Aramoro-san.”
At the small, expected rap at the door, Asami regained Lady Kachiko’s demeanor without
hesitation, the tears vanishing from her face.
“Enter,” she called.
A kitchen maid entered with Kachiko’s evening meal on a black lacquered table tray.
“The Emperor’s blessing upon you,” Asami crooned, gesturing for the servant to set the food
near her. As soon as the door shut behind the servant, Aramoro moved to inspect the dishes.
However, Asami had already snapped up the chopsticks with agile fingers. A tiny morsel of fish
landed on her tongue before he could stop her.
“You fool,” Aramoro hissed, dragging the tray away from her. He quickly scanned the tiny
dishes of rice, sesame-speckled seaweed, pickled plums, and miso, looking for traces of fatal
powders, oils, or tinctures. They betrayed no poisonous ingredients. He looked to her mouth. She
had already swallowed the fish. Were it poisoned, she could die within moments. His heart raced as
he waited for a labored breath or cry of pain. Nothing.
Did she do that on purpose? To test me?

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 The flicker of defiance had burned out, leaving only Asami’s modest obedience. She
appeared unaware of his panic. He frowned.
Would I care if Asami died?
The question melted as fast as frost. He pushed the tray back to her, gesturing for her to
finish tasting the rest of the food for Kachiko.
No. Kachiko takes precedence, not Asami, in all things. It would be her duty to die for her
lady.
As if reading his thoughts, Asami whispered, “You have taught me well, Husband, both in
the ways of the Scorpion and the ways of assassination. I will keep Lady Kachiko safe with my life.
But, should I fall, our son would become an orphan since the secrecy of my position prevents you
from claiming him publicly. May I at least write to him? I can send the letter through our clan
infiltrators in the Miya messengers.”
She met his eyes. The glisten of tears had returned.
“No.” Aramoro stood to leave. “Concentrate on Lady Kachiko. Nothing else.”
Asami nodded, the corners of her mouth wilting. “As you wish. Will I see you again
tomorrow? After your investigation has ended?”
“Not likely.” Her desperation had started to become tedious. “Shoju is sending me to Ryokō
Owari Toshi for the next few weeks. The seriousness of that mission is likely the real reason he
wants me to finish this investigation tonight.”
Her jaw dropped slightly. “I have heard nothing about your mission to Ryokō Owari.”
“Keep it that way.”
Another knock at the screen indicated the arrival of a messenger. Asami became Kachiko
once more.
“Enter.”
“My Lady Kachiko,” the young herald said, bowing with practiced sincerity and humility.
“I bring a reminder of your audience with the Phoenix envoys after tonight’s assembly—”
Aramoro stopped listening as he marched back out of Kachiko’s chambers—nearly cuffing
the Phoenix boy—leaving Asami to her playacting.

The heat of the throne room itched Aramoro’s face beneath his mempō as beads of sweat formed
across his upper lip. The room teemed with dozens of silken sycophants who nearly clawed at the

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throne, attempting to feed their ambitions. He ignored their rhetorical babble, watching every flick
of a fan or swish of a sleeve for hidden menace.
The Emperor, usually so patient and dignified as the Son of Heaven, listened with weary
shoulders, the late hour and heat of the assembly obviously taxing his old frame. Prince Sotorii,
seated to his father’s right, glowered at the prattlers. At the Emperor’s left, Lady Kachiko, not
Asami, had taken her rightful place beside him as his advisor. Despite being seated beside the
majesty of the Emperor, every alluring twist of her proud head asserted her dominance of the room
as a master courtier. Mirroring Sotorii in perfect opposition, she smiled as she scanned the assembly.
Her lips parted slightly in seductive delight and her eyes glittered with mischievous fire, as though
she could divulge each person’s darkest secret on a whim. Her gaze lingered longest on Doji
Kuwanan, recently arrived from the front where Hotaru commanded the Crane forces.
Aramoro stood mere inches away from Kachiko’s rosewood seat near the edge of the dais,
blocking direct access to her from that side of the room. Not far from them, the cowering Otomo
Utoshi approached. Masao followed him, the yōjimbō’s gaze barely leaving Utoshi’s back as he
picked his way carefully between courtiers. While the rōnin debate escalated into frenzied
accusations and deflections of responsibility—the cacophony churning the sea of nobles about the
room—Utoshi inched closer and closer. He wriggled between the bodies to stand on Kachiko’s side
of the dais, Masao close behind, mere steps away from Aramoro.
Aramoro was not armed, having surrendered his weapons along with all the samurai before
entering the throne room. However, the Otomo’s nearness served no threat. Aramoro could snatch
his eyes and tongue out within two heartbeats, should the need arise, but that hardly seemed
necessary. Utoshi’s face was pale, sick with anxiety, and he lilted from one foot to the other as if
fear gnawed at his stability. Fear drove weak men to rash action.
Would the imbecile dare attempt anything in the throne room, before the Emperor himself?
Aramoro cracked the knuckles of his left hand, a signal he and Kachiko had devised to catch
her attention. Gracefully, she turned her gaze upon Utoshi and gave him a knowing smile. He
gasped, alarmed at her personal attention. A shiver squirmed down his back, and he recoiled half a
step. She continued to stare, eyes locked with his, mesmerizing him until, with a final silent squeal,
he retreated into the silken throng. Masao frowned with annoyance at having to pick his way through
the crowd of courtiers once again. He grimaced at Aramoro before disappearing. Aramoro grinned.

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 However, the sweat on his lip tingled again. Something was not right. Utoshi had risked the
wrath of the heavens by approaching the Emerald Throne, only to wither like a cobweb before a
candle. Perhaps the ploy lay elsewhere.
The room grew silent as the Emperor rose, adjourning the assembly until the next week, and
after the Son of Heaven and his heir retired from the room, the crowd followed, thronging toward
the doors. Aramoro motioned Kachiko to stay for a moment where she sat.
“My lady,” he whispered, leaning slightly over her, eyeing the courtiers as they filed past.
Utoshi lingered in the back, watching them. “Your shadow grows long with the setting sun. Perhaps
we should walk to where we might make it disappear.”
She nodded, tranquil in the face of danger, though her eyes darted toward the door for only
the briefest glance. “As you advise, Aramoro. Perhaps a moonlit stroll through the palace gardens
will soothe our heavy burden. It will most assuredly be private at this hour.”
Aramoro stood aside to let her rise before following her leisurely gait as she melted into the
crowd, no more than a few inches from her side. He collected his katana and wakizashi from the
attendants outside the throne room in the hall, nodding to Kachiko to spring their trap. Spotting
Utoshi following them at a distance, Kachiko called out to him.
“Utoshi-san,” she sang, beckoning him with a sensual wave of her hand. “I am afraid the
heat of this evening’s assembly has proven overpowering. Would you join me in the garden for a
brief respite? I hear the perfume of night-blooming jasmine is an excellent cure for faintness.”
The Otomo’s mouth fumbled open, his eyes bouncing between her and Aramoro, searching
for motive. Aramoro snorted at his scrutiny.
“O-of course, Lady Kachiko,” Utoshi stuttered, awkwardly offering her the hallway, so he
could follow her. “If you would have company.”
As they entered the garden, the full moon glimmered over the wall. The light gilded the
darkened bodies of the trees and gravel paths in a spectral silver, making a lantern largely
unnecessary. Utoshi hesitated at the edge, hardly daring to step into the dark, but Kachiko had
already pushed forward, calling him to follow her. Aramoro hung a few steps back with Masao,
counting the distance between them and their masters in dagger lengths.
“How did you... enjoy the assembly, Lady Kachiko?” Utoshi mumbled, clasping his nervous,
fluttery hands behind his back.

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 Kachiko chuckled, bringing a modest hand up to her mouth. “Oh, it was rather uneventful,
wouldn’t you say? Not a single daring move by anyone.”
Suddenly, Utoshi tripped on a stone in the dark path, teetering a moment before crashing
into Kachiko’s side. She gasped and stumbled, nearly falling down with him. Quick as lightning,
Aramoro drew his katana and seized a handful of Utoshi’s garments. He snapped the courtier
backward before throwing him to the ground. Kachiko regained her balance and skittered into the
dark, running behind a copse of weeping pines. Aramoro lifted his blade, pointing directly at Masao.
“Don’t move,” he snarled, ignoring the sputtering, whimpering Otomo in the dirt. Masao
froze, the tumult distorting his face with confusion. Aramoro smiled. Their ploy had trapped the
right prey. “I have been looking for you, assassin, but cowering behind a shivering curtain is a
wretched place to hide.”
Masao glared down at Utoshi who sobbed, cringing in the gravel. Turning his baleful eyes
on Aramoro, he bared his teeth for a second before tumbling beneath the blade point and lunging
over the top of the fallen Otomo. Aramoro snapped his katana down, but only succeeded in slicing
the trailing kimono silk in Masao’s wake. Masao sprinted toward the weeping pines, crashing
through the trees to where Kachiko had disappeared. Aramoro sprang to follow.
In the dim light ahead of him, two dark figures struggled. A small flash in the dark where
Kachiko had drawn her sharpened hairpin dagger, but Masao crushed her hand and flung the weapon
away. He whipped her arm around behind her back, securing his hold on her before drawing a long,
poisoned needle from his sleeve. She writhed in his grasp as he attempted to stab her neck with its
point.
For a split second, she locked eyes with Aramoro. Cold fear flashed behind their softness.
They were Asami’s eyes. Not Kachiko’s.
Aramoro plunged his hand between the needle and Asami, clamping his other hand around
Masao’s throat, instantly crushing his windpipe in a Claw of the Scorpion grip. Not a sound issued
from Masao as he seized for a moment before hanging limply from Aramoro’s fingers.
Asami broke free from her assailant’s lifeless hold and grabbed her husband’s arm. “What
have you done?” she hissed, pulling the needle out of his cloth armguard. She unwrapped the fabric,
squinting in the darkness to find the pinprick in his flesh.

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 Aramoro slowly came to his senses, letting Masao finally drop to the ground. Asami was
right. He had been a crazed imbecile, making a fatal mistake in his haste. And for what—for Asami?
He paused, feeling the blood pounding in his hands.
He stared at his wife, once again seeing all the differences between her and Lady Kachiko.
She was still the lesser woman, and her angry tears over his safety repulsed him. But she was safe.
Aramoro turned to inspect Masao. The wretch still breathed, though the crumpled flesh at
his throat would hinder any interrogation for a long time.
“At least he is alive,” he grunted, not particularly speaking to Asami. “In time, the clan will
be able to learn more about where he came from and who he was working for.”
“Aramoro,” Asami breathed. She let go of his arm. “The needle did not break your skin. It
only caught in your armguard.”
Aramoro said nothing. Instead, he grabbed Masao’s collar and started dragging him away.
After only a few paces, he stopped. With the assassin’s capture, Kachiko was safe for now.
The Scorpion would have no need of Asami until Hotaru returned to court—which wouldn’t be until
late fall, after the season of war was spent. His wife could leave for Kyūden Bayushi before dawn,
and he could protect the real Kachiko by himself, staying close to her side...
Aramoro frowned. Shoju was sending him to Ryokō Owari come morning. Kachiko would
be vulnerable without her yōjimbō. Before all, their duty to the Scorpion took precedence.
“I will see you when I return, Lady Kachiko,” he grunted, turning back into the darkness,
the heavy body scraping through the gravel behind him, “and give my regards to the Miya.”

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My Dear Cousin,

The wind that bites across the plains has within it the first teeth of winter, and so my thoughts turn
to the future. As I have charged you with the stewardship of Hisu Mori Toride, lately recaptured by
my son Shono, you play an integral role in that future. I fear that you have not seen the last of our
war with the Lion, and you are not positioned to best apply the strengths of our armies. We are
invincible on the Golden Plains where our horses are given leave to run, but the terrain along our
shared border—villages, farms, rivers, castles— favors the Lion. I have given Utaku Kamoko leave
to join her Battle Maidens to our regulars and lead the joint force south across the river. Her
offensive shall keep the Lion too occupied to threaten our lands, and her force will prove too mobile
for the Lion armies to destroy.
It is lamentable that we were unable to secure a claim to Toshi Ranbo, as it would have given
us an excellent position to threaten the Lion from multiple directions, as well as the ability to easily
coordinate with our allies the Crane. However, with Shinjo Shono and Utaku Kamoko otherwise
engaged, the cost to secure the city would have been too high.
I have sent Shono west along the Sand Road, in the company of his trusted companions and
advisors. The wind that blows from the west brings the bright scent of wealth, but there is danger
there. Caliph Harun al-Hakim has long cast an envious eye on our holdings outside of Rokugan, and
when word of our renewed war with the Lion reaches him, he may decide the time has come to raise
against us. We cannot allow trade along the Sand Road to be disrupted now. Resolving this matter

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and keeping the peace will require a general’s hawk-vision and a diplomat’s lark-song. Pray to the
Five Winds that Shono has both.
Though the son of the Shinjo has been taken far from us, the departure of Shahai pains us
even more. To sacrifice the presumptive heir to the Iuchi daimyō to a life in a cage should be enough
penance for any clan, and yet the Phoenix have revoked our right of pilgrimage to the Shrine of the
Ki-Rin. It seems they have encountered djinn for the first time, and rather than accept the aid of
those accustomed to dealing with such creatures, they have chosen to blame us for their own failures.
So be it—the Unicorn can ill-afford open conflict with yet another Great Clan at this time, but the
insult will be remembered.
If only the Great Clans were the extent of our troubles. Iuchi Rimei has brought us word of
creatures stirring in the Shinomen Forest—intelligent beings with the appearance of serpents. Only
the Unicorn Clan has the wherewithal to broker peace with such a strange people, and doing so is
of the utmost importance. It is our duty to protect Rokugan from all such threats. To that end, I have
tasked Ide Nominari and the Shinomen Wayfinders with keeping the peace with our new serpentine
neighbors.
We face many challenges, but it is ever so. We count among our number the greatest
warriors—and the greatest peacemakers—in the Emerald Empire. Like Shinjo before us, we ride
ever into the unknown that is the future. And like our ancestors, we will always be the equal to its
challenges. To gaze fearlessly into the unknown, to know that we will always be ready for what
comes, that is to be a Unicorn. It is our strength, and one which the Empire will dearly need, no
matter how little they respect it.
Courage, cousin. Winter lies ahead, but spring comes after.

Shinjo Altansarnai,
Seeker of the Setting Sun, Khan of Khans, Mistress of the Five Winds,
Daimyō of the Shinjo, and Champion of the Unicorn Clan

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Greetings, Honorable Samurai of the Lion Clan,

It has been several months since Heaven saw fit to appoint me Emerald Champion, and although
my duties have taken me from your side, the Lion remain at the forefront of my thoughts. The might,
discipline, and honor of our samurai inspire me daily as I seek to uphold the celestial Emperor’s
justice throughout the Empire, and nothing shall interfere with my service to our clan as its
champion. I am grateful that you are likewise attentive to me. Your blessings over my new position
and my recent marriage to Lady Kaede have been felt.
I realize that this season has been especially trying for the Lion. My earlier insistence on
peace between our clan and the Crane has not wavered, especially considering the will of the
Emperor. However, I recognize that duty binds me to assert our position over the city of Toshi
Ranbo and its surrounding lands, both militarily and politically. To maintain neutrality, I have
appointed Bayushi Yojiro as Chief Magistrate of Toshi Ranbo. Having recently returned from an
important assignment in Ryokō Owari Toshi, Yojiro has proven himself both equal to the task and
egalitarian in matters of clan relations, and I trust that his involvement will further our just cause.
Beyond Toshi Ranbo, we have experienced struggles with other clans, including the recent
reports of Dragon encroaching upon our lands to the north. For now, Ikoma Tsanuri’s brilliant
strategic munificence has prevented any major military or political conflicts, and though we
outnumber the Dragon forces ten to one, we must all continue to use our best judgement to respond
to their aggression. More grievously, the Unicorn have come dangerously close to crossing the line.
Their repeated offenses regarding Shinjo Altansarnai’s betrayal of her marriage agreement and the
subsequent assault and capture of Hisu Mori Mura have inflamed many of our people against them.
These continued affronts to our honor and holdings cannot go on with impunity, and demand
a swift and fierce response. However, they have also spurred dangerous desires for revenge and
unjust hostility, common sentiments since the death of Akodo Arasou. We should look to Matsu
Tsuko’s most honorable actions toward helping Arasou join our ancestors in Yomi. Her example
provides us with an important lesson for reflection. While we seek to defend the Lion’s strength and
legacy, we must uphold clan traditions above all, even before immediate personal desires.
Our foremost sacred tradition is to serve as the Emperor’s Right Hand. As our great ancestor,
the Kami Akodo, was appointed this great honor by the first Hantei, our celestial duty is to serve,
protect, and fight for the Emperor, no matter the cost and never for our own gain. This path must

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dictate our approach to clan disputes because the Lion Clan acts as the shining example by which
all other samurai live and die for Rokugan. It has long been the Emperor’s will that no state of war
shall exist between clans.
Nonetheless, the Empire requires skilled samurai in positions of leadership to answer any
call should one or more clans violate the Emperor’s holy structures. To this end, I am seeking new
commanders for the Emerald Legions, and I call on all Lion battalions to conduct military exercises
to find and train those worthy of selection. By producing the most exceptional military candidates
for these appointments, marshaling our clan strength and skill for the Emperor, we shall honor the
traditions of our ancestors—by upholding the tenets of Bushidō, by living above reproach in our
actions and desires, and by fighting the Emperor’s enemies who would seek to tear the Empire apart.
This is our heavenly calling, and we shall answer it with the ferocity of the Lion!

Ever faithfully your servant and champion,

Akodo Toturi,
His Excellency, the Right Hand of the Emperor,
High General, Champion of the Lion, and Daimyō of the Akodo

Sage Samurai of the Dragon Clan, I contemplate a riddle:

If something is small, can it also be large?

The answer is as unique to each of us as the path we follow through each life we live. My answer
today is yes—distant things, seen from a high place, are small. The troubles of an Empire may seem
small from our distant perch, but they are anything but. As one descends into the valleys of the
south, these troubles are revealed in their actual scale. The esteemed Mirumoto Hitomi leads an
army of our brethren to Otosan Uchi. She will confront the things soon to happen there as the truly
momentous events they will prove to be. The worldly and wise Togashi Mitsu accompanies her,
doing those things necessary to support such a long and arduous march. He secures the right of

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passage through the lands of other clans, such as the Lion, who are much closer to these great and
fateful things, and so unable to see them with the clarity and perspective we do.
It may be that you read this and say, but what of those things close to me? Those distant
troubles might be large in truth, but they do not loom over me the way these things—imposing and
close at hand—do. You may ask, what of our children, who are so few? Are they not of greater
importance? And what of those who openly profess the equality of all on the path you speak of,
samurai and commoner both? Such individualism is at the core of who we are...but it could also be
a false path, leading us in circles and away from our true destiny. Should we not address these things,
solve these conundrums, before we engage those that are so far off?
In answer, I say, we are the Dragon. In our devotion to the truth of the world, we see all
things as they are and shall deal with them all accordingly. Our children are few, so the life of every
samurai of our clan is precious and must not be squandered. We cannot blindly indulge those who
profess that all have a path to follow in one breath, and in the next, promise it inevitably leads to
Enlightenment. We must be ready to confront those things, but not to the exclusion of facing these
other, great things that are coming.
Something momentous is coming to the Empire. Even now, it rises from the sea of turmoil
lapping at the walls of Otosan Uchi. Very soon, it will descend—suddenly and without warning—
bringing threat and opportunity and unprecedented change. Hitomi and Mitsu and the rest of our
brethren will be there when this happens, but they must not stand alone. You are destined to join
them. You must now follow your path and learn to see all things as they really are, no matter how
near or far. It is a road that only we, the Dragon, can tread.
May the Heavens watch over us all.

Togashi Yokuni,
The Enlightened, Master of the High House of Light,
Champion of the Dragon Clan

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Greetings, Keen and Gracious Samurai of the Crane Clan,

I read the report of your latest foray with great amusement. Our opponents always remember too
late that the crane that walks about in the muddy pond can spreads its wings and fly into the heavens.
I will see that the information you sent will be put to good use. In turn, I am sending you this missive
so that, being well-informed, you will continue to bring honor to yourself and your family.
The arrogant cats of the west continue to make noise around Toshi Ranbo, to no avail. Our
glorious Emperor has—like a wise parent dealing with an unruly child—taken the matter out of their
reach. The city is to be administered by an Imperial delegation which will be led by the Emerald
Magistrate Bayushi Yojiro. Crane diplomacy and the rectitude of our ancient claims will soon
persuade the Honest Scorpion to allow our influence to again be felt in the city, and our own
Magistrate Daidoji Chitose will offer him any assistance we can render. With Toshi Ranbo secured,
I have called upon our generals to gather our armies on the Osari Plains to meet the next challenge.
Our forces grow in strength daily, as warriors flock to our banners like songbirds to a freshly
threshed field.
Those who think that this war will exhaust the Crane’s treasuries will be disappointed. The
true wealth of the Crane lies in the skill and creativity of our people, and that is inexhaustible. You
know this to be true: the warrior who today boasts of how he will triumph over our samurai then
goes home and shows off his newest wall scroll—painted by a Kakita artisan—to his admiring
friends. Thus, even our enemies add to our wealth.
Now, I must speak to you of those seafaring peasants who style themselves as the Mantis
Clan. For some time, our shipping has been plagued with losses from pirates linked to the Mantis.
Now, some of the Asahina have sensed an elemental imbalance connected with the storms that have
also been plaguing our ships. They bring tidings of terrible abuses against the kami by the Mantis,
who blaspheme not only common courtesy, but the spirits of nature themselves.
I am out of patience with these upstarts. We are preparing a response to their outrageous
behavior, and I am recalling Doji Kuzunobu from Shizuka Toshi. My husband will then be sent to
represent the Crane among his former kin. The honorable Fox Clan will be delighted to host such a
high-ranking courtier from a Great Clan, and you shall go with him to seek out solutions to appease
the offended kami off our coasts.

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 Sharpen your swords and polish your mind, my friend. Much has been done, but much
remains. Our descendants to come will speak in awe of the things we accomplish as we drive the
Lion out of the Osari Plains for good.

Lady Doji Hotaru,

Trusted Left Hand of the Emperor, Beautiful Mistress of the Arts,
Skillfull Daimyō of the Doji, Indomitable Champion of the Crane Clan

Esteemed Samurai of the Glorious Phoenix Clan,

It is my hope that the shape of this letter, that of a singing cricket, provided you with some
amusement. It was folded by the skilled hands of my new advisor, the honorable Asako Maezawa,
to grant a moment free from worldly concerns. I am told such things ensure the health of the spirit.
Naturally, if any folds were not crisp, or portions of the letter arrived torn, then be advised that this
letter was prematurely opened.
I have much to say. As you likely have guessed, the security of the clan relies on your
discretion in the following matters.
You may have heard rumors of the Master of Void’s disappearance and taken steps to quell
them. I write to inform you that those rumors are true. Isawa Ujina is gone. The council plans to
announce this to the clan after further investigation, but I am telling you now so that you can control
any unseemly reactions. Ujina-sama was beloved by all who knew him, but he would want us to
continue on. This is what my beating heart insists.
As agreed when she came of age, the honorable Akodo Kaede has declined to inherit her
father’s seat. I have yet to speak with her regarding her father’s wishes, but for now, it is the will of
the Elemental Council that the Void seat remain vacant. This may leave us vulnerable, so let us be
even more vigilant.
While we cannot know why Ujina-sama has vanished, we have some theories. Some believe
this is Unicorn retaliation for the festival incident. The one known as Iuchi Shahai, who dwells in

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the same city as did Ujina-sama, has made her feelings toward us very clear. This relates to the
purpose of this letter.
I know you are stretched thin, honored servant of the Phoenix. As it was when we petitioned
the throne regarding the Unicorn’s meishōdō traditions, our requests for Imperial-sanctioned access
to Toshi Ranbo fell on deaf ears. The current stewards of the city care little for our concerns; to
them, the imbalance of the land is a fight on the other side of the river. It may seem wrong to abandon
our efforts toward these ends. But this is a greater matter, and chasing two hares means you won’t
catch either.
I need you to find the Master of Earth. With the Void seat vacant, and Isawa Atsuko needed
to protect the initiates of Starry Heaven Sanctuary, there are only three masters on the council, and
they need their fourth. Enclosed with this letter are traveling papers permitting passage to the last
place Tadaka claimed to go: a rural village in Kuni lands. I wish I could tell you more, but he has
not written in some time, and I cannot be sure my own letters have reached him. He will probably
resist, insisting upon the importance of his work. When he does, please show him the enclosed seal
of the council. That should convince even him. And if it is possible, please write back when you
have found him. I would be grateful.
Fallen blossoms will not return to the branch. Time is fleeting. Leave as soon as you can.
And kindly destroy this letter.

Shiba Tsukune,
The Soul of Shiba, Protector of the Council, Keeper of the Tao,
Daimyō of the Shiba, and Champion of the Phoenix Clan

Forgive the blunt nature of this letter, Honorable Samurai.

I will not mince words. Toshi Ranbo is a lost cause. We are prepared to negotiate with Chief
Magistrate Bayushi Yojiro for the bounty of its jade wealth, for we have the greatest need of it
among all the clans. Do not concern yourself with the political situation there. Let the squabbling of

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the other clans be their undoing. The Crab have no time for such. Embrace the lessons you’ve
learned and move forward!
I hereby command an end to the rumors winding throughout the servants of the Crab. They
are like poison in our veins. The notion that the honored daimyō of the Yasuki could be abducted in
the presence of his own guards is unthinkable, and if such a claim had reached my ears, I would
have struck the fool who spoke it. Yasuki Oguri has already attested to the safety of his father. Let
that be the end of it. We shall concern ourselves not with shadows, but with the demons that cast
them.
The wise often say: “Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse.” The watchtower at
Ishigaki Province has not sent word in some time. The last report I received claimed that a section
of the Kaiu Wall was under attack by the forces of our eternal enemy. This morning, I smelled
smoke on the west wind. You will go to Ishigaki province and attest to its current state. You will
leave today. Enclosed is your authorization for travel. Present it to any who doubt your purpose, and
record their names in your report to me. If the Wall in Ishigaki has fallen, you know what must be
done.
Fate’s river runs two ways. Although Toshi Ranbo’s jade may not be ours, Lady Sun still
smiles upon us. The honorable daimyō of the Yasuki has persevered against the other clans and
secured a wealth of jade and armaments for immediate use. This will sustain us for the immediate
future, contributing not only to the continued efforts of the honored Kuni daimyō in his research,
but also to those warding against the increased attacks on the wall. To secure further supply lines
along the coasts, we shall soon host Yoritomo of the Spice and Silk Islands. He is an honored guest
and shall be treated as such.
I have committed my intent to paper. See that it is done.

Lord Hida Kisada,

Defender of the Wall

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Greetings, my loyal vassals. I offer prayers to the ancestors that this letter finds you well.

Here, as I write this missive, I recall the majestic fury of the kami that awakened beneath a mountain
near Castle Soshi, called Hadakayama. As the spirit under the mountain raged, gray ash fell like
snow upon a small abandoned village in the valley below. I later discovered that a group of bandits
had seized the opportunity to loot whatever meagre possessions the villagers had left behind in their
haste. But, this brazen thievery was their undoing; they were trapped by the falling ash and buried
with the village in a featureless, ashen tomb.
Recalling this incident, we can consider its wisdom in approaching the situation facing our
clan today. We will soon face another crisis, one that will shake the Empire as vigorously as the
enraged mountain spirit. Just as those bandits who, in their greed and arrogance, saw only the
opportunity offered by the volcano’s eruption, those of us who see only the opportunities in the
coming upheaval in the Empire will likewise face calamity.
I can hear some of you insist that our position is unassailable. Our political might stands
almost unchallenged in the Empire’s courts, our place close at the side of he who sits upon the
Throne assured. The esteemed Bayushi Yojiro-san soon departs his service in Ryoko Owari to
assume the duties of Chief Magistrate of Toshi Ranbo, assisting the new Imperial governor to
rebuild and administer the city and end the bloodshed between the battered armies of the Crane and
the Lion. Meanwhile, even as the Dragon languish in their mountains, embroiled in their own affairs,
the Crab eagerly seek our aid in fulfilling their sacred duty upon the Carpenter Wall—and on and
on the list of turbulent matters affecting the Great Clans goes. Only our clan remains relatively
untroubled and in a position of unprecedented sway in Imperial matters.
Need we concern ourselves, then, with what appear to be new opportunities to accrue more
influence and more power? Do not forget the opportunistic bandits who ignored the crisis and sought
to defy, not just the elements, but Hadakayama-sama in their efforts to enrich themselves. Better
they had been discovered by the magistrates before entering the doomed village, for that may have
offered them a chance, at least, of being saved from oblivion. Instead, they were victim to a horrific
fate, buried under the immense weight of dispassionate circumstance.

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 Rest assured that I will not allow any of you, my honored vassals, to succumb to such a dire
outcome. I, and those chosen by me, will be watching over all of you closely, to ensure this remains
true.
Ever vigilant in his wisdom, may Bayushi-no-Kami guide your thoughts, deeds, and words
in service to your clan and Empire.

Lord Bayushi Shoju,

The Most Dutiful, Master of Secrets, among other titles known and unknown,
Daimyō of the Bayushi, and Champion of the Scorpion Clan

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Western Shinomen Forest, Tenth Century

To pass on, a soul must be at peace. This is why the world was flooded with ghosts. Who meets
their end having accumulated enough things, having solved all their problems with an untroubled
heart? Preoccupied by endless worries and desires, they don’t notice when death comes. The
moment passes and they are left behind, invisible and unseen, feeding off the living.
Nyotaka was glad to banish them. He had not been born with the ability to see ghosts, but
he had learned how after his gempuku. For this, he thanked his sensei and the way of the Falcon.
“That’s the last of them,” he said, flicking his blade. The other yureigumi, the phantom
hunters, knelt by the fading lights left by their banished foes, whispering prayers for Emma-Ō’s
attention. “They were probably Forest Killers in life. Damn bandits. They’re a pain even when
dead!”
Close by, Masaomi laid a scrap from a sutra over a fading ghostly light, murmuring. His
other hand fed his sword—a purified katana with a handle wrapped in sacred scriptures—to its
sheath.
“Even the mockingbird doesn’t waste his chirps,” Nyotaka remarked.
Masaomi centered Nyotaka in his mismatched eye, the pale one with the mother-of-pearl
shimmer. It was proof of his lineage to Yotogi, the clan founder. Nyotaka could not look upon it
without the heat of jealousy.

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 “We’ve done them no favors, sending them confused and lost with the additional weight of
their new karma. They couldn’t help themselves as ukabarenai souls.” Those who cannot rest in
peace. “Don’t you feel sorry for them?”
So much for the playful jokester he’d known in his youth.
“Does one feel sorry for a shadow? For a breeze?” Nyotaka shook his head. “They are what
they made themselves. Emotions without a mind. Desires without a body. If this is a punishment, it
is self-inflicted. To slay them is a small mercy. There is nothing human left to pity.”
“Nothing human is left?” Once more he felt Masaomi’s pale gaze. “Are you so certain?”
“Yes.” Nyotaka replied. “In the heart of a samurai, there is no room for doubt.”
“Masaomi!”
They jolted at the gunsō’s bark.
“The others are moving on,” the sergeant growled through his mossy beard. “Will you be
left behind?”
“No, cousin,” Masaomi replied. Then, red-faced, corrected himself. “No, Taguchi-sama.”
Where Masaomi had only one, Taguchi could see ghosts with both eyes. Yotogi’s blood ran
stronger in his veins. That was the only reason he was a gunsō. He set his hand on Masaomi’s
shoulder.
“Remember your task,” he said. “The Lady appears perhaps each generation. A chance like
this comes but once a lifetime.” His face grew stern. “I won’t see you squander it!”
“I won’t,” Masaomi promised. “I’ll make father proud.”
Taguchi turned, setting Nyotaka squarely in his searing glare. Nyotaka knew why—Taguchi
considered him an outsider, a nuisance, and a bad influence on his little cousin. It had been so ever
since they were children.
Nyotaka returned the glare. Masaomi was a gentle soul with no ambition to rise in the clan.
No one here would look out for him, much less Taguchi and his constant pushing—his
preoccupation with titles and glory. He didn’t understand Masaomi like Nyotaka did.
The squad continued their march in grim silence. Their lanterns were blue orbs weaving
between long gray trees.
Movement above. While he did not possess Yotogi’s sight, his clan’s training honed his
senses. A nocturnal falcon perched on a low branch, transfixed on something. A field mouse,
perhaps.

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 “We’ve arrived,” Taguchi finally said. The others set their lanterns down, pushing the
darkness back. In the clearing, a bell hung from a stone arch, turned green with time. Trees
surrounded the glen like the bars of a cage.
Had he been here before? Nyotaka listened to the brittle crunch of leaves and watched the
shivering branches. All quiet glens looked the same. Perhaps he’d huddled here years ago, during
his gempuku.
He had been deep in the Shinomen marshes when his sensei abandoned him, leaving him
alone to find his way back. No one had told him this was the rite of passage to become a Falcon
Clan samurai. That would have defeated the entire purpose. Some fellow students claimed ghosts
had led them back. Others said they were attacked, spirits chasing them through haunted woods. For
Nyotaka, his gempuku was just another unremarkable night. He could barely remember it at all.
He’d been at the top of his class before that night. But now Masaomi was on the rise, forced
into increasingly risky, dangerous missions. Nyotaka conducted only lonely patrols, lighting the
lanterns of the Valley of Spirits every night on his own. Nyotaka had been left behind, while
Masaomi was pushed ahead where Nyotaka could not protect him.
But not after tonight. As the others formed a circle around the bell, Nyotaka moved beside
Masaomi and glanced at his troubled face, his wounded expression.
Taguchi produced a small mallet and struck the bell with a dull ring. As one, the squad turned
to the east, waiting. In the branches above, the falcon watched them all.
“There!”
A crimson light peeked between layered trunks, moving, growing closer. The gathered
samurai shifted nervously, a few exchanging whispers until Taguchi shushed them.
Masaomi will never forgive me for this. But Nyotaka didn’t care. Masaomi was not made for
crawling the swamp, his beautiful heart hardening with each new horror. Surely, he would
understand. Eventually.
A short figure entered the clearing in a halo of crimson light, the red lantern swinging from
a bamboo staff. The pale woman wore a style of layered robes that Nyotaka had only seen before in
old paintings inside his father’s study. She crossed in graceful silence, not even the crunch of fallen
leaves.
“I am Toritaka Taguchi, sergeant and phantom hunter of the Falcon Clan.” He bowed low.
“We come as you summoned, Honored Lady.”

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 Nyotaka’s mother once told him that the Lady appeared to the first Falcon and many others
since. Whether she was a ghost herself, an immortal sorceress, or simply the great-great-
granddaughter of the woman who guided Yotogi, none could say for sure.
“A new threat comes,” she whispered.
Taguchi straightened. “The Falcon are ready.”
The lantern threw long shadows across her porcelain face. “A willful, ancient soul has
escaped the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. It dwells in a palace within these woods, drawn to something
within.”
“We can depart at once,” Taguchi offered.
“Only one may go,” she warned. “More, and it will smell you coming.” She looked from
one wondering face to the next. “Which of you is willing?”
Taguchi cast a glance at Masaomi, who tensed, ready to accept this task on behalf of the
Falcon.
I’m sorry, Masaomi. I hope you’ll understand.
“I will!” Nyotaka announced, pushing past Taguchi’s stunned face before Masaomi could
even speak. He fell to a knee. “I am Toritaka Nyotaka, head of my class! I am ready to honor the
pact!”
Silence. She didn’t even acknowledge him. The others exchanged confused looks. Masaomi,
face pained, just looked away.
“Forgive him,” Taguchi hissed. “He forgets himself.”
Nyotaka sprung up. “P-please! I am faster, quieter, a better swordsman!” Each word stabbed
at his heart, but worse was the thought that Masaomi might face the danger alone. “Give me the
chance, my Lady! And I will—”
“How long has he been following?” she asked.
“Since we entered the forest,” Masaomi croaked. “I... I let him.”Nyotaka spun. “No! I came
of my own will! Do not blame—”
The Lady’s face softened. “Poor thing. You don’t remember how it happened, do you?”
His gempuku night. Turning a corner, his sensei gone. Dropping his sword. Where had it
fallen? He didn’t have it even now...
“It’s my fault,” Masaomi spoke. “I took the fire striker from his bag, so he would be lost in
the dark.” Moisture welled in his eyes. “It was only a joke.”

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 That night had been so cold. What had happened afterward? He couldn’t remember
returning. Couldn’t remember...
The Lady smiled. “Your regret reminds me of him, Masaomi. So I do you this favor.”
She lowered her lantern. A chorus of gasps. Now they all could see him. Nyotaka drew his
gaze slowly down his translucent hands, where the red light now passed through, and down to his
legs where his feet vanished into darkness. His sword was gone. His armor was gone. Taguchi shook
his head. Where there had surely been anger in his eyes before, Nyotaka now recognized pity. Pity
for the dead.
“He knows what he is now,” Taguchi said. “It’s time, Masaomi. Make your father proud.”
The Falcon blade was in Masaomi’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, a wet gleam in his pale eye.
“I won’t forget you.”
“It’s not true,” Nyotaka murmured. “I still feel. I...”
The blade fell. From above, the falcon scooped the field mouse with its claws and carried it
past the canopy, into the darkness beyond.

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Yasurugi laid the massive greatsword on the bamboo stand with the blade facing up. The fire-hued
wings that were its hand guard unfurled above its cherrywood handle, the perfect steel ring pommel
adorned with owl feathers, the mirrored steel of the blade a window into the reflected world. It was
steel he’d forged himself from iron sand, blue quartz, and charcoal. He’d made tsurugi before—
Hida’s retainer Kaiu had shown him how—but no sword he’d previously forged had ever been of
this quality.
Or so he hoped. Yasurugi bit his lip. The sword was as much a product of the blacksmith’s
spirit as it was his skill, according to his sensei. If he’d faltered even once during the forging—if
he’d succumbed to doubt or fear...
Sitting straight, he suspended a plum blossom just above the edge and, with his breath held,
let it go.
The blossom gently fell against the blade and was sheared in two.
“Well done! Well done!” came a sharp, piercing voice. A figure in black feathers and blue
silks appeared beside him, wings folded tightly against its back. Expressionless avian eyes twinkled
faintly above its midnight beak. “Not bad for a beginner’s effort, yes?”
Yasurugi bowed. “Thank you, sensei.” Rising, his gaze caught on something cradled in the
creature’s avian claws, extended in its one-legged stance: a slender sheath of polished cypress,
intricately carved with dancing dragons, the detail even finer than the carvings that had left his
mother’s hands.
“An excellent sword needs an excellent home, yes?”

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 Yasurugi’s chest swelled, tears welling in his eyes. That the paltry effort of a student might
join with his sensei’s masterwork into one complete piece was more than his heart could bear. But
to shed joyful tears would be disgraceful, and so he bowed instead, feeling his heart skip as the steel
forged by his hands slid perfectly into the sheath.
“A piece of you,” the tengu squawked, “folded into the steel. You surrendered much into it,
yes?” Lifting the sword, the tengu’s head bobbed like a dove’s. Its gaze grew cloudy. “Kunshu shall
be its name. Whatever fate befalls this blade, so too shall befall its masters.”
Yasurugi gasped at the spoken prophecy. What had he set into motion? He felt suddenly like
wings without wind, and he collapsed into a kneel, gathering his breath with earnest effort.
“I should not have shown you this technique,” said the tengu. Although its expression did
not change, its voice thick with concern. “Human souls are finite, yes? The cost is too high.”
“I would give more,” Yasurugi replied, slowly recovering, lifting his face. “What is just one
life compared to the hundreds entrusted to my uncle?”
The renewed twinkle in the tengu’s eyes was like a smile. “Just one life might make a
difference someday. But so be it.” The bird crossed its wings and stood straight. “You have exceeded
my expectations, my student. Now... do so again.”
Yasurugi’s eyes widened. It could only mean that he’d been judged worthy to continue his
lessons. His heart swelled like a rising tide once again.
“This time,” the tengu added, “you will give the blade five folds, yes?”
Five folds. It was unheard of in the human realms. Even the finest of Kaiu’s blades used only
three. Surely the metal would grow brittle when folded so many times! Surely it would warp when
each layer cooled at different rates!
“Is such a thing possible?” he whispered.
“Oh, simple child of Doji,” the tengu whispered, “let me show you how...”

“How did the bird-man talk without lips?”

The child’s question, delivered with bright-eyed innocence, was met with ripples of laughter.
Fumio’s ear flicked at the sound, but he remained stubbornly curled in Doji Shizue’s lap.
“Crows can talk!” claimed one of the children, a boy wearing an orange kimono. “I’ve heard
them lots of times.”

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 Another child, bald and wearing gold and green silks, raised his voice. “Sure! They go, ‘Kaa!
Kaa!’” He flapped his oversized sleeves, and the children burst into laughter again.
Shizue sighed inwardly, lowering her illustrations of Doji Yasurugi and the humanoid crow.
This was supposed to be a lesson about the forging of Kunshu, the Ancestral Sword of the Hantei.
But predictably, the children fixated on the giant talking bird instead.
Not that she’d been any different at that age, she reminded herself. She could almost hear
Lady Teinko chiding her over requesting yet another tengu story...
A tiny hand tugged at her kimono, the owner staring up with big brown eyes. “Where did all
the tengu go, Shii-sama? Why don’t we see them anymore?”
Dramatically, Shizue looked up through the box-shaped window in the chamber’s roof.
“They live in the clouds,” she replied. “And on the tallest mountaintops. Perhaps, one day, if you
are lucky, you might see one.”
Two dozen eyes followed her gaze in open wonder.
“It sounds like you all have your heads in the clouds,” Shizue observed. She tapped her lips
for a moment. “Perhaps I had better tell you another story, then? A cautionary tale about a tengu’s
anger, and why one should treat all living beings with dignity.”
Drawing a breath to begin, she hesitated. A pale woman leaned against the chamber’s
entrance, hands folded into her purple kimono sleeves, black hair forming a curtain around her face.
Against the room’s winter-themed murals, she was a midnight brushstroke.
“Then again,” Shizue said, “is it not time for your calligraphy lessons?”
A sea of disappointed groans rose with the children. Fumio protested before leaping from
her lap as she stood. Leaning on her cane, she shooed the children along. “Yes, yes. It is terrible to
leave your favorite teacher, is it not? We shall resume tomorrow. Hurry now, Akari-sama will be
terribly upset with me if you are late!”
Her eyes followed them as their echoing voices and childish arguments faded down the hall
to their next class. Shizue regarded the woman with trained eyes. The passing days had done little
to change Iuchi Shahai since she’d stumbled into one of Daisetsu’s classes at his invitation. She
stood straighter, her stride more confident, her clothing less rustic and closer to the latest fashion
favored by the courts. Yet she still avoided the gaze of others and said little. She was an accidental
black splotch on the corner of an ink wash painting: only polite to overlook—but marring the
landscape and impossible to ignore. She didn’t belong here.

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 And from Shahai’s first mumbled word, Shizue had wanted to befriend her.
“I am glad you came, Shahai-san,” Shizue finally said, offering a bow. “Please do come in.”
Shahai spun to face Shizue and bowed in return. She avoided Shizue’s smiling eyes and
folded into her seat with the grace of a shadow. “Thank you,” she murmured, lips moving just
enough to utter the words, not a single bit more. “Apologies for interrupting.”
“You are right on time,” Shizue replied, setting a ceramic cup before the Iuchi, then one for
herself. A small bulb of Jewel Dew and Hotei’s Smile rocked gently at the bottom of each cup, a
tangle of dried tea leaves resembling a briar. Shizue had selected and bundled them herself.
“This season’s students are rather bright,” Shizue continued as she checked on the kettle,
ensuring the water was not too hot. “They have taken well to their lessons.” She glanced back at her
somber guest. “What of your students, by the way?”
Shahai stared at the dried bulb in her cup with a dark eye. “Let’s just say, if you ever wanted
to trade, I’d consider it.”
Shizue chuckled as she lifted the preheated kettle. Only brief discomfort flickered across her
face, her uncooperative leg making the movement awkward. Shahai started to rise, as if to help, but
Fumio put an end to that, leaping suddenly into the young woman’s lap—having seemingly gained
several pounds by sheer feline will.
As she slowly crossed the room, Shizue caught two courtiers peeking in from further down
the hall. They swiftly departed, their abrupt turn a concession that they’d been discovered. One
whispered to the other, and although she could not hear them, Shizue knew what they said. She’d
heard the gossip, known that her letters to Shahai were intercepted and read a dozen times, as was
traditional with any letters sent in the Imperial Capital. “The bluebird and the crow” were how the
court referred to their meetings together. She regarded the woman absently scratching Fumio’s ears,
face white with powder, a midnight river of silk hair covering one side of her face. Their contrast
was undeniable, and observers would see little in common between them.
But that was only the surface. Shizue, too, had been an outsider, once upon a time...
As the water from Shizue’s kettle poured into Shahai’s cup, the saturating tea-bulb
unraveled, blooming to reveal a dried purple flower, a globe amaranth from Shizue’s own garden.
Although subtle, Shizue still caught the widening of Shahai’s eye and hoped the woman had
received her silent encouragement.

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 “The Crane also make blooming tea?” Shahai asked as Shizue sat across from her. Her tone
was almost...cautious?
“The Doji learned it from the Shinjo,” she replied, her smile brightening her words. “I hope
my own efforts weren’t too clumsy.”
Viridescent tendrils stained the water beneath Shahai’s expressionless face. Shizue’s heart
twanged like a biwa, and for a moment she feared that her gesture had accomplished the opposite
effect, and the poor shugenja had only grown more homesick, lonelier...
“You did well,” said Shahai, and lifted the cup.
Shizue released her breath. Making the little tea bulbs was a time-consuming endeavor, one
in which she’d failed and had to retry many times. It would take more than this, however, to cross
the gulf between them.
“Any word from Toshi Ranbo?” Shahai asked, her voice so quiet that Shizue almost missed
it.
The Crane folded her hands. “The court, to ensure a peaceful end to the fighting, has made
the Scorpion the city’s stewards.”
The tea cup hid Shahai’s frown, but not her displeased eyes. “What an unexpected
development,” she said flatly. “Far preferable to our clan’s proposal. One wonders what the
Scorpion will next acquire for ‘stewardship.’”
The sarcastic words echoed Shizue’s heart, but she didn’t say so. “Great wisdom is
demonstrated by entrusting the city to the care of the Honest Scorpion, and those who believed the
city could be taken by unruly complaints have been silenced.” She sipped, savoring the delicate tea.
“Still, I fear Kakita Asami must endure a long winter with the Matsu as consequence.”
“Kakita Yuri’s daughter?” Shahai perked up a little. “I hadn’t heard. You knew her?”
“We were friends when we were younger.” Shizue smiled into her cup. “I think perhaps she
was closer with my brother.”
“Do you know where she is being held?”
She’d spoken the question so casually, Shizue nearly missed it, along with the implications.
“No,” she replied, voice lowering to a whisper, “but I have my suspicions.”
“I will mention her to father in my letter tonight,” Shahai offered. “Perhaps someone will
have heard something.”

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 What did that mean? Did the Unicorn have scouts in Lion territory? A story formed in
Shizue’s mind: Unicorn scouring Lion lands for any sign of Asami. Two Great Clans could truly
bond over a story like that.
Shahai sighed and looked away. “I assume he is still receiving my letters...”
Shizue felt sorry for the poor Iuchi. The Forbidden City was the center of the universe, the
axis upon which the world turned, overflowing with courtiers and seneschals to rival stars in the
sky. In other words, a very lonely place.
As Shahai sipped her tea, Shizue slowly procured the small lacquered box from beneath the
table and placed it between them. Gently, she nudged it forward.
Shahai’s eyes widened. “Is that...?” She regarded Shizue with growing surprise. “You found
a set?”
“They are smaller than I had originally estimated,” Shizue confessed. “On such short notice,
the artist may have rushed through the finishing. I apologize for any shortcomings.”
It looked for a moment as though Shahai might reach across the table and embrace her. But
the woman simply smiled and lowered her head. “I do not know how I can repay you, Shizue-sama.”
Shizue waved it aside. “Do not be troubled. It is nothing between friends.”
Shahai raised her head, watching the Crane with her dark eyes. Then, nodding to herself, she
drew something small from her kimono folds and extended it across the table.
It was a tiny brass crane cradling a faceted glass orb. The trinket was attached to a long
chain, as if meant to be hung from the neck.
“It is a poor recompense for this favor you’ve done me,” Shahai explained, “but even so,
please take it and my thanks.”
Shizue paused. She’d heard rumors about Shahai’s trinkets. According to the whispers of
the shrine keepers during her daily prostrations, the Seppun family shugenja struggled to invoke the
kami’s protection over the Emperor each evening, blaming this on the presence of Shahai’s baubles.
Shizue knew nothing of the Kami’s Way, but she knew meishōdō had something to do with trinkets
like these. Was this one of them? She drew a quick breath. It was, wasn’t it? This was a meishōdō
trinket, one of the objects that had caused such a recent stir.
She couldn’t refuse. It would insult Shahai. All the efforts she’d made to cross the barrier,
to befriend the daughter of the Iuchi daimyō on behalf of the Crane, would be wasted. And besides,
there was a scandalous appeal to carrying one of Shahai’s trinkets beneath her collar in open court...

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 Shizue bowed as she accepted the bauble. She pointedly admired the artisanship, the way
the trapped light danced between the reflected facets of the orb. “It’s beautiful,” she remarked. She
looked up with wide gray eyes. “What... does it do?”
“It hangs from your neck,” said Shahai.
She didn’t seem to understand why she’d made Shizue laugh.

One final time, Shahai drew the lacquered box from her pouch. The seam was nearly invisible, until
her nimble fingers flicked the wooden tab and parted the two doors, revealing the velvet lining
inside. Resting in the box-shaped depressions of the velvet sat a set of Fortunes and Winds dice:
twenty-four tiny cubes as white as a foal’s teeth, and six more as black and glossy as obsidian. She
ran her fingers over each die’s smooth surface, with thin, graceful kanji carved into each face and
delicately gilded in gold leaf. Shizue had downplayed the quality, but to Shahai’s eye, whatever
Kakita artisan had carved these dice had well-honored their teachers.
Daisetsu once possessed a dice set much like this one. He’d enjoyed it until it had been
discovered by a horrified maid, then consequently misplaced and lost. Doubtlessly relieving the
Seppun; Fortunes and Winds was not the most well-regarded of pastimes.
Such a gift was extremely unsuitable for an Imperial Prince. That, Shahai reasoned, was why
it was perfect for him.
She closed the box and tucked it away. It was nearing the end of the Hour of the Serpent. He
would be passing the reflection pond by the Spring Pagoda. Shahai made her way there, passing like
a shadow in the halls of the Forbidden City. Shuffling courtiers kept their eyes ahead or turned to
the floor. A Scorpion flicked open a fan to whisper to her Phoenix companion as she passed. Shahai
paid them no mind.
When she found him, Daisetsu’s procession had been interrupted by a teenage girl wearing
the Otomo family crest and far too much makeup. Shahai snorted at the girl’s poor attempts at
wordplay, noting how perfectly still the prince kept his features, even as his yōjimbō searched the
clearing desperately for something more interesting. Shahai approached, and Daisetsu, meeting her
eyes only briefly, tilted to include her.
“Forgive my rudeness,” Shahai said, not speaking so much as letting the words fall, “but His
Highness’ riding lessons...”

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 Annoyance flickered across the Otomo’s face. Daisetsu nodded. “Ah, is it nearly the Hour
of the Horse?” He excused himself, tossing a wordless glance to his yōjimbō, a mute instruction to
stay behind, as he often did when Shahai was involved. Leaving beside him, Shahai felt the
samurai’s glare on her back as surely as a pyre in summertime.
As they walked, finally alone, Daisetsu relaxed. “Yet again, I owe you.” He sighed. “I
wonder under which rock the matchmaker found that one.”
Shahai’s stifled laugh came out as a snort. “Is it so wise to perpetually avoid your suitors,
my prince?”
He shrugged. “Father will choose whomever he prefers. I needn’t be involved.”
The halls gave way to a tiered courtyard built around a sand garden. They walked along the
third-floor balcony as servants raked grooves into the sand and sweated beneath the oppressive
afternoon sun. Daisetsu stopped suddenly, placing his hands on the banister, and looked down.
Shahai stood just behind him, wondering why he’d paused, but not asking.
“Is it true the Unicorn arrange their own marriages?” Daisetsu asked.
Shahai smirked. It wasn’t the first untrue rumor about her people she’d heard. “There are a
great many courtship rituals among the Unicorn, my lord, but that is not one of them.”
He nodded softly. “I would much prefer a Unicorn spouse, if I had my choice.”
She didn’t know how to respond. That was forward for the prince... what exactly did he mean
by that? Was he suggesting something? She regarded his young face tilted down at the tiers beneath
him, oiled hair framing sharp Imperial features, gilded by the sun as if in homage to the earliest
Emperors, who were said to glow like their founder. She was still eligible, and only four years older
than he. In fact, their birth stars might even be compatible...
She shook her head. No. It was just an idle comment. She shouldn’t read into it.
It suddenly occurred to her that they were standing at a vantage that offered a clear view into
the room across from them, through a circular window set into the wall. Daisetsu was spying on
someone? After glancing around to be sure they were truly alone, she risked edging closer to follow
his gaze. It made her heart beat a little faster; anyone coming upon them would notice the improper
distance, and conclusions could be drawn. She would only look for a moment...
Framed in the window was a massive tsurugi, easily four shaku in length, resting on a
bamboo stand. Even from this vantage, Shahai could see the exquisite dragon-sheath and the brilliant
patina of the winged hand guard. It had to be Kunshu, the Ancestral Sword of the Hantei, displayed

397
in its place of honor. She’d never seen the Emperor’s sword before, not even at such a distance, but
based on what she’s overheard from Shizue’s description there was no mistaking it for anything
else.
She glanced at Daisetsu. There was no desire in his eyes as he looked upon the sword, but it
seemed as if he were waiting for something. But what?
Looking back, she noticed a second, shorter sword beside Kunshu’s stand, this one slightly
curved in the manner of a tachi. It was a simple soldier’s sword, no adornment, no marks
whatsoever. “What is that other sword?”
“That is Shori,” Daisetsu replied, “the Ancestral Sword of the Lion. It rests beside Kunshu
in a place of honor. The Lion Clan Champion cannot even hold that blade without the blessing of
the Emperor.”
“I had not realized the Lion were so picky about drawing their blades.”
Daisetsu’s smirk at her comment gave her an unexpected amount of pleasure. It was in that
moment that she realized her hand had found its way into the pouch, and her fingers curled around
the sharp edges of the box. Should she present it to him now? Unbidden, her hand started to lift it...
“Ah,” said Daisetsu, “there he is.”
Hantei Sotorii appeared in the room. Shahai’s heart quickened with the pricking instinct to
duck away, but Daisetsu held firm, and she was tethered to him by invisible string. “He’ll see us,”
she whispered, trembling with the thrill of such a taboo, to be discovered spying on the Emperor’s
eldest son.
Daisetsu shook his head. “My brother sees only what is in front of him.”
Oblivious, Sotorii brazenly lifted Kunshu from its stand, and with some trouble, freed it from
its sheath. Daisetsu raised an eyebrow. “It seems brother is playing with father’s toys again.”
Holding the sword awkwardly, Sotorii sliced at the air, as if fighting invisible opponents,
pausing only to pose in trembling imitations of folk heroes depicted in woodblock print.
Shahai clasped her hands over her mouth to stifle a bark of laughter. One could be executed
for such things, but she could not help it. The façade of a noble scion of Hantei had given way to a
mere child playing with a stick. As the prince slashed at invisible opponents, his strikes growing
clumsy as Kunshu’s weight tired him, the humor of the spectacle slowly faded.
This was the heir to the throne. Bushidō dictated that the greatest warriors of the most
powerful families in the entire span of the world would be led by... this.

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 It was not so funny, after all.
“He’s always been obsessed with that sword,” Daisetsu murmured. He wasn’t smiling
anymore. His eyes were heavy with pity, his hands tightening around the banister, knuckles
whitening. “He acts as though it is already his, but he’s not Emperor yet. Even then, he won’t have
it right away.”
Seeing her questioning look, he explained. “There is a tradition dating back to when the folk
hero Doji Yasurugi presented Kunshu to the first Hantei. Before the Emperor’s coronation, the
Seppun entrusts Kunshu into the care of a Great Clan, who guards the sword until the day of the
Emperor’s ascension. They have the honor of presenting it to the newly crowned Son of Heaven.”
As Sotorii returned the blade, Daisetsu’s eyes narrowed. “Had he his whim, he’d be wearing it now.”
“It is just a sword,” she said.
He looked at her plainly, as if surprised. For what it was worth, she too was startled by her
own words, but now she couldn’t stop them. Her heart had been uncorked by what she’d seen. “It’s
an old piece of metal. There are surely thousands like it in the Empire.”
He shook his head. “No. Kunshu is special.”
“Perhaps,” she conceded, “but why do you care if he possesses it?”
“I don’t.” In the window, Sotorii struggled to sheathe the massive sword. “I am afraid of
what he’d do with it.”
They stood there, silent, as the shadows crawled across the sand garden.
“But then,” Daisetsu whispered with distain, “to follow him is what Bushidō demands.”
Then damn Bushidō, she thought. I will follow only you.
The thought stunned her. It had seemingly come from nowhere. She knew then that she’d
committed a great sin, as surely as if she’d spoken those very words, or struck the prince Sotorii
with her own hand. It didn’t matter that it was only a thought. The Tao said, “With our minds we
make the world.”
It was still treason.
But she’d meant it. It was her heart’s truth. If Bushidō demanded that she follow one who
would play games with a sacred object, then Bushidō had no use.
Sotorii was gone. In the window, Kunshu sat in its honored space.
“Would you do me a kindness, Shahai?”
Anything. “Of course, my lord.”

399
 Daisetsu looked into her eyes. “Don’t ever let me become like him.”
Shahai let the box slip back into the bag without the prince ever seeing it. She’d been wrong.
It was too inadequate, an unworthy gift for him. She could do better than that. He was worth more.
“I promise,” she said, her words like steel. “On my life, I swear it.”

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Unicorn Clan Novella should be read here. Please go to
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/legend-of-the-five-rings-fiction/products/across-burning-
sands/ to purchase the novella.

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401
Jodan contemplated the dire situation confronting him.
There were few reasonable options open to him, and none that he could consider good. He
finally placed his stone on the Go board such that he took sente, the initiative, opening a new front
in the game. It was a bold move, perhaps even a rash one, as it left vulnerable one group of his
stones, in a more crowded part of the board. The situation demanded a bold move, though, as it was
the only way to even hope for a favorable outcome.
Bayushi Shoju didn’t immediately react. He simply stared at the board for a time, a stone
gripped between thumb and forefinger. Finally, his hand descended... and he placed the stone back
among its unplayed fellows in a brightly enameled bowl.
“That is an unusual move,” Shoju said, his gaze lifting from the board. “I expected a more
conservative placement, that you would continue developing the position you’d already
established.” Behind his mask, Shoju’s eyes smiled. “It seems, your majesty, that you have chosen
to keep us all guessing at your next move.”
Jodan rubbed his left hand with his right. The ache in both had become chronic, but the left
always felt worse.
His left hand. The Left Hand of The Emperor held the fan, the symbol of political power and
control in the Empire. But his left hand was weak and growing weaker by the day.
Jodan looked briefly at Shoju but let his gaze wander away from his friend and into the late
summer brightness of the Imperial Gardens sprawling around them. He had originally intended to
meet Shoju in his accustomed place of solitude in the Forbidden City, the spartan audience chamber
in the Shrine to Hantei-no-Kami. Lately, that sparse room had become a place of tension—of deep

402
thought, of compromise, of tough decisions with uncertain and possibly dire outcomes. It was like
the gote placement of a Go stone, the opposite of sente: a place to merely continue what had gone
before. Instead, he had settled on this unremarkable little teahouse tucked away in the Imperial
Gardens as the place for their game.
“Bold and unexpected moves are, I must admit, somewhat foreign to me,” Jodan said, his
eyes on the colorful blooms of an azalea. “And perhaps it is unusual to learn so late in life, but
sometimes bold and unexpected moves are the only reasonable way to proceed.”
A breath of wind rustled the flowers and leaves around them. Shoju lifted his sake cup and
sipped at its contents, a particularly good Yasuki brew. “Your words,” he said, lowering the cup,
“are certain... but their tone is less so.”
Jodan turned back to Shoju. Are you surprised? I am poised to surrender the throne, upend
my succession, name you as Sesshō, the Imperial Regent—in other words, plunge the Empire into
chaos—and you discern uncertainty in my words?
“Even now,” Jodan said, “I am second-guessing my placement of that stone. It was too bold,
perhaps. Perhaps, with that stone, I have sealed a calamitous fate for myself.”
As goes the fate of the Emperor, so goes that of the Empire.
“It is not a poor move,” Shoju said.
“Perhaps, but is it the right move?”
Shoju shrugged, a lopsided motion that favored his stronger left arm. “A prophet may be
able to say. The rest of us, however, must base what we do on what we know and believe, and then
live with the consequences.”
Jodan nodded at the lone stone. “Indeed, we must all live with those.”
Shoju tilted his head in a thoughtful, way, then said, “Your majesty—neither of us will know
how the game unfolds until we play it out. In the meantime, we make the best moves we possibly
can. We do not simply place the stones randomly. Our actions are guided by whatever knowledge
and wisdom we possess. And, of course, by what has gone before.”
Jodan gave Shoju a sharp look. What had gone before.... That was what truly preyed upon
his mind, wasn’t it?
Does Shoju know me so well?

403
 The Bayushi steepled his fingers. “Now, of course, we could analyze your reasons for
placing the stone the way you did. However, I do not think your doubts regarding this game are
really at issue. I do not think you invited me here today for an intimate and detailed study of Go.”
Yes, it would appear that he does.
Jodan gave a thin smile. “As I recall, you suggested we play today.”
Shoju offered another lopsided shrug. “Perhaps you are not the only one with doubts. You
are proposing to place me in a... a remarkable position, your majesty.”
Jodan idly massaged his left hand again. His weaker hand. That was unlike Shoju, whose
left hand was stronger by far than his withered right; an unexpected strength many of his opponents
had discovered only too late.
“The correct thing,” Jodan said, “would be for me to simply issue this edict regarding my
succession, for you to play your part in enacting it, and for neither of us to discuss it any further.”
He gave a rueful smile. “But that is not how these things really work, is it? As I now have concerns
about placing that stone, I have... concerns... about the edict Toturi will proclaim to the Empire.
How could I not? How could you not?”
“Your majesty, a moment ago I suggested we could analyze your placement of that stone, to
determine why you chose to place it as you did. Perhaps it would be more fruitful to analyze what
caused you to decide as you did regarding your abdication and succession.”
“There were many reasons.”
Was that really true? Had it not actually been remarkably simple?
“There was one incident in particular, yes?”
Jodan looked back at the azaleas. He knows my mind indeed. This will make him an excellent
Regent...will it not?
“Yes,” Jodan said. “My sons, and their... duel.”
“My son was involved as well, your majesty. Dairu gave me his recounting of what
happened—but you have not described what happened to me in more than a passing way.”
Because it was painful, and humiliating, and so... unnecessary. It was an abject failure for
my oldest son, Sotorii.
Worse, does that not mean it was also an abject failure for his father...for me?

Six Months Ago

404
Bayushi Dairu stabbed a triumphant finger at the copy of The Articles of Heaven, a treatise on legal
reform in the Empire in the wake of the brutal reign of Hantei XVI, the Steel Chrysanthemum.
“Here, Daisetsu-san!” he said, unable to keep a hint of victorious glee from his voice. “These
are the Miya daimyō’s own words, and they prove me correct! Torture is not to be used on an
accused if there is any doubt as to his soundness of mind. That is a point for me; so I am in the lead,
now!”
Hantei Daisetsu offered a bow of concession. “Indeed, you are, Dairu-san. Which is... very
unusual.”
“Very unusual?” Dairu put on a face of exaggerated outrage. “I may not always be correct,
but I don’t think it happens so rarely it is very unusual.”
Daisetsu grinned. “My apologies,” he said, bowing again. “That is not what I mean. This
fact is unusual. I have been led to believe that, in the quest for justice, no one is exempt from torture.”
He couldn’t stop the grin from fading. “It would appear that our forebearers were somewhat more...
tolerant, perhaps, than we are today.” Narrowing his eyes at the treatise, he added, “Anyone who
has seen torture should be outraged by it.”
Daisetsu had seen it. His sensei in matters of law had thought it important he witness this
fundamental precept of Imperial justice. There had been pain and terror in the dark little room; pain
and terror that could not just be seen and heard but smelled. Wouldn’t the one being tortured simply
say what they believed their tormentors wished to hear? How was that just?
Daisetsu blinked, filing the fact, and its reference in The Articles of Heaven, away for future
consideration. Right now, he had more important matters to address. Namely...
“Now it is my turn, Dairu-san,” he said, “and I have every intention of evening our score.”
What had begun as an argument with Dairu over the correctness of a passage from Akodo’s
Leadership had become a great contest. They had come here, to the wan light and dusty, old-paper
smell of the Scorpion Guest House’s library in the Forbidden City, determined to prove who had
the better knowledge of obscure, scholarly facts about the Empire. Each had dredged some bit of
what seemed to be the most trivial knowledge, something gleaned from some essay or treatise they
had studied under the watchful eye of tutors and flung it at the other as a challenge. Leadership still
sat in the center of the table, but now copies of The Articles of Heaven had joined it, as had Shosuro
Furuyari’s great play, The Mask, Rezan’s even greater play Awakening, the famous essay On Peace,

405
even the pillow-book Sanshien’s Fascination (which was nowhere near as scandalous as Daisetsu
had secretly hoped). A half-dozen more works sat stacked nearby. They had both won and lost each
other’s challenges, so only a single point separated them. It was, Daisetsu thought, most exciting.
He pursed his lips in thought. “Yes. I am sure you will be unable to answer this question,
Dairu-san.” He started to stand. “Now, I believe I saw a copy of Winter over there—”
A sudden commotion at the entrance to the library cut him off. A harsh voice snapped, “Out
of my way, you fool!” as someone stormed into the room.
Daisetsu sank back into his place and closed his eyes. No...
Hantei Sotorii strode among the scroll-racks, melted snow beaded and glistening as he
moved. He stopped and loomed over the table where Daisetsu and Dairu knelt. A servant followed,
a look of stark terror etched onto his face, probably because Dairu had ordered him and Daisetsu to
not be disturbed; an order that had not accounted for the tempestuous arrival of the Crown Prince of
Rokugan.
Sotorii’s fingers curled, working to become fists. He glowered at Daisetsu. “I had thought,
brother, that you were to practice your calligraphy today.”
The word brother had fallen from Sotorii’s mouth like a dropped stone. Daisetsu forced
himself to ignore it, drawing on the serenity of the otherwise silent library to maintain a semblance
of calm.
“I did, brother. And now that is done, and I am here.”
Sotorii’s glare swung from Daisetsu, to the piled scrolls, to Dairu, back to Daisetsu. “Here
doing what, exactly?”
Daisetsu placed his hands on his knees, the only way to avoid them actually becoming fists.
What business is it of yours? You are not Emperor—yet—I need not answer to you. Just go away!
Dairu gestured to the still-cringing servant, shooing him away. “Hantei-sama,” he said to
Sotorii, “your esteemed brother and I are engaging in a contest of wits. We each pose a question to
the other, based on the great literature of the Empire. Whoever answers the most correctly shall be
the victor.”
Sotorii’s scowl hardened. “Why? What is the point?”
Dairu blinked. “The point is to...” He trailed off into an uncertain look at Daisetsu.

406
 The point is to pass some enjoyable time with a friend, Daisetsu thought, not that it’s even
remotely any of your concern, you blustering ox. He kept his hands on his knees and said, “The
point is to simply challenge each other, and ourselves at the same time.”
Sotorii swiveled his glare from one to the other, then nodded curtly. “Fine. I will take part
as well.”
I will take part. A statement. Not a question nor a request; just a flat, uncompromising
statement of how things would be.
Daisetsu’s fingers cramped around his knees. Again, he thought, You are not yet the
Emperor—but it doesn’t matter. You think you are entitled to anything you want. Simply by the
circumstances of your birth, you believe you can demand whatever you wish and have it. You earn
nothing, but expect everything.
Which was blasphemy, of course. The Celestial Order was as graven stone. Sotorii was the
Emperor’s eldest son, he was the heir to the throne, he could expect to have essentially whatever he
wished. Dairu had left instructions for them not to be disturbed, but none of the Scorpion guards at
the door, or the retainers or servants within the guest house, would ever presume to gainsay the
Crown Prince of Rokugan. Having somehow learned Daisetsu was here, he simply crashed his way
into the place and now, here he was with yet another demand: to participate in their contest—
whether either of them wished or not.
I do not care if it is blasphemous to think so—I do not care what the Celestial Order says,
or that he is the heir. This is not right. It is not fair. Sotorii is not Dairu’s friend. He cares nothing
for him, for spending time with him until now, of course, when I am doing so.
Dairu had apparently been waiting for Daisetsu to speak. Finally, the young Bayushi broke
the lingering silence, glancing at Daisetsu as he said, “Very well, Hantei-sama. The contest is quite
simple. We—”
“No,” Daisetsu said.
Sotorii and Dairu both looked at him.
“No,” Daisetsu said again, locking his gaze on his brother’s. “We can hold another contest,
at another time. This one is between Dairu-san and me and is nearly done.”
Sotorii tried to loom over Daisetsu and Dairu. “You can hold another contest now. Just start
this one over again.”
Daisetsu shook his head. “No.”

407
 “How dare you refuse me! I demand—”
“I do not care what you demand!” Daisetsu snapped, leaping to his feet. “You are being rude,
brother! You are a guest in this place! It is not your place to demand anything!”
Sotorii flinched slightly as Daisetsu rose to face him, but quickly stepped forward, crowding
his younger brother. “You presume to call me rude? You’re the one, brother, refusing to allow me
to join in your foolish little game! As for being a mere guest, have you forgotten I am heir to the
throne? Any place in Rokugan would be honored to have me in attendance.” He swung on Dairu.
“Isn’t that right, Dairu-san?”
Dairu, who had been keeping his eyes carefully averted from the confrontation, glanced up
only briefly. “Of course, Hantei-sama. Your presence here is... is indeed an honor.” As soon as he’d
finished speaking, the young Scorpion’s eyes flicked away again.
Daisetsu tried to offer his friend a look of encouragement, but Dairu simply huddled on the
other side of the table and kept his gaze anywhere that wasn’t the two brothers.
Which is typical for those who must deal with Sotorii. He cares nothing for those around
him, only himself.
Daisetsu turned back to his brother’s scowl. “Dairu-san says only what he thinks you wish
to hear.”
Like the man being tortured.
Daisetsu had started to consider his next words, but the renewed thoughts of torture suddenly
sent his mouth racing ahead of any prudence, making him fling what was truly in his heart at Sotorii.
“You honor no one with your presence, Sotorii. You are an obnoxious fool, believing that just
because your rear will someday fill the throne that everyone must dance to your insufferable
demands.” He shook his head. “No, brother. Not this time. You are not welcome here... so go, now,
and leave us alone.”
Sotorii’s eyes widened as Daisetsu spoke; by the time he was finished, they were almost
comically wide, as though about to pop out of his head. But there was no humor in any of this.
“You have gone too far, brother,” Sotorii finally said. “You have insulted me. And by
insulting me, you insult the Celestial Heavens themselves. So, I... I challenge you to a duel, so that
the Heavens can render proper judgment upon you, in turn.”
Daisetsu blinked. A duel? Don’t be ridiculous.

408
 He almost snorted a laugh at Sotorii, his usual response to the reckless, blustery temper to
which he’d become so accustomed. His brother would rant on a little longer, and then storm away
in a dramatic huff. Yes, for the next day or so he would be as ornery as a mujina, a nasty little
trickster spirit from Sakkaku, but Daisetsu was used to that as well.
Except there was no reckless temper in Sotorii’s eyes this time. There was only a cold and
ill purpose.
Daisetsu frowned. “Do not be ridiculous, brother. I am not going to duel you.”
“So, you admit that you have wronged me. Or are you simply a coward, unwilling to back
up your words with steel, as Sincerity and Honor demand?”
Daisetsu almost laughed at his brother’s invoking of the two Bushidō tenets. How ludicrous.
This wasn’t about Honor or Sincerity. This was about the heir to the Throne of Rokugan acting like
a spoiled child and throwing a tantrum when confronted about it. Daisetsu bit back the laugh and
opened his mouth to perfunctorily dismiss Sotorii and return to his amusement with Dairu, but the
Scorpion spoke first, standing as he did.
“I agree that you are an honored guest, Hantei Sotorii-sama,” he said, his voice solemn, “but
your behavior has been...” Dairu swallowed. “It has been inappropriate. I must object to it on behalf
of my clan, whose hospitality you currently enjoy. Therefore, I... I accept your challenge on behalf
of Hantei Daisetsu-sama, and I will stand as his champion in this matter.”
Shocked, Daisetsu turned to look at his friend. “Dairu-san, no—this is not necessary!”
“Yes, Hantei-sama, it is. An honorable challenge has been issued. It must be answered. Since
we have both had our honor called into question, I will answer it for both of us.”
Daisetsu swung back to Sotorii, but his brother only shrugged. “Fine. If you wish for the
Heavens to judge you as well, Dairu-san, so be it.”
Daisetsu could only stare and shake his head. He suddenly felt like he rode a panicked horse,
one that only galloped faster and faster even as he tried to rein it in.
No—this is insanity! We will not do this!
Before he could find the words, however, Sotorii said, “Very well then. I shall meet you at
the dōjō in the Imperial Training Grounds in one hour.” With that, he bowed, turned, and stalked
away.
Daisetsu just stared at his brother’s retreating back. The horse galloped faster still, now an
instant from disaster.

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 Insanity. Because of the foolishness that is honor and Bushidō, we have embraced insanity.

As he and Dairu entered the dōjō in the Imperial Training Grounds and pulled off their snowy cloaks,
Daisetsu could scarcely believe he was even here. Several times he’d tried to get Dairu to listen to
reason, but the young Scorpion merely shook his head.
“You were challenged, Daisetsu-sama,” he’d replied. “The challenge must be answered.”
His flat and unshakable certainty only made Daisetsu marvel even more at the absurdity of it all.
It took a moment for Daisetsu’s eyes to adjust from Lady Sun’s late afternoon brightness to
the cavernous gloom of the dōjō. When they finally did, he stopped short. Sotorii was here, standing
apart from another group of people gathered near one of the sparring circles marked on the floor.
Daisetsu recognized the armored bulk of Seppun honor guards and the crests of several Otomo and
Miya courtiers. The Emerald Champion, Doji Satsume, stood with them, his face its usual study in
severity. But it was the figure around whom they’d all clustered that drew his immediate attention—
his father, the Emperor, was here.
Relief flooded him. Someone had learned of what had happened and informed their father.
Finally, this nonsense would be laid to rest. Their father would put a stop to the foolishness between
his sons, no doubt admonishing them for carrying on so; embarrassing, but no more embarrassing
than this whole unseemly display.
“Daisetsu-san,” the Emperor said, “step forward.”
Daisetsu obeyed, then bowed, suppressing a sigh as he did. So, it begins. Hopefully, father
will not be too harsh.
“It is my understanding that you and Sotorii-san are to engage in a duel, over a matter of
insult. It is my further understanding that Bayushi Dairu-san is to stand as your champion.”
Daisetsu glanced at Sotorii, then nodded. “My apologies, your majesty, for wasting your
time in such a way—”
“It is not your place to apologize,” the Emperor cut in, “unless the Heavens ordain it so.”
Daisetsu stared at the Emperor. Unless the Heavens...?
Is he going to let this foolishness proceed?
“Ordinarily, your majesty,” Doji Satsume said, “samurai would draw steel to settle such a
matter. But none of them have yet passed their gempuku, so they are not entitled to wield the katana.
The wooden bokken must suffice.”

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 Daisetsu’s stare edged toward an unconcealed gape. Father...you can’t be serious!
Regardless, Sotorii and Dairu were both profoundly serious as they each took up a bokken
and stepped into the sparring circle. Satsume himself acted as adjudicator, naming the alleged
transgression—an insult, unforgivable in its substance—and beseeching the Heavens to administer
justice, guiding the hands of one of the combatants to righteous victory by a blow to his opponent’s
torso. This was, perhaps, as benign as a duel could possibly be, but it was the fact of it occurring at
all that left Daisetsu stunned. He had felt he was upon a runaway horse; now, it had long since reared
and thrown him into a persistent dream that clung like cobwebs, both real and unreal at once.
As the Emerald Champion exited the circle, Daisetsu looked at his father. No. Surely he will
stop this. He means only to teach us all a lesson, for pretending to be samurai. He won’t allow
Sotorii to strike at Dairu...allow him to be humiliated, even hurt, just because my brother is an
obstinate fool.
But the Emperor’s solemn attention remained on Dairu and Sotorii, as did that of his retinue.
All watched what was about to happen as though it was something momentous, and not just a petty
squabble between brothers.
Because he was looking at the Emperor, Daisetsu almost missed it. Dairu and Sotorii were
motionless, their bokken held at the ready... then an eruption of war-cries, a blur of movement... a
sharp yelp of pain. Sotorii stumbled past Dairu, clutching at his side. Dairu, also in motion, turned,
stopped, and faced Sotorii. He waited for the young Hantei to bow his acceptance of defeat, to be
followed by an apology—
—and Sotorii did turn and face Dairu, but he offered no bow. Instead, he snarled and swung
the bokken at the Scorpion’s head. Dairu barely ducked in time, the stout wooden practice sword
whistling past his ear.
Dairu immediately backpedaled and raised his own bokken. Sotorii closed in, growling and
swinging again and again, hard enough that if any of his wild swipes were to connect, Dairu would
certainly suffer severe injury. Gasps and exclamations rose from the Emperor’s retinue, but Daisetsu
found himself already in motion, his shock and horror at his brother’s attack trailing his own body’s
desire to act. In a few steps he had reached Sotorii and grabbed his arm, pulling it, trying to stop
him from swinging again.
“Sotorii...no!”

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 But Sotorii was stronger and charged with fury. He yanked free, turned, and hefted the
bokken.
Daisetsu meant to dodge back, but his balance and momentum were all wrong. He would
just stumble, then the bokken would slam down on his exposed head—
Something massive shoved in front of him. Daisetsu saw the intricate lacing of lacquered
armor, and realized it was one of the honor guard. He heard Sotorii shout “No!,” but the guard just
stood his ground, an impassive wall of determination and armor.
A frozen moment, as Sotorii simply stood, confronting the unyielding Seppun. Daisetsu
seized on the reprieve to glance at Dairu. The Scorpion stood in a defensive crouch nearby, a stunned
look on his face, but with no apparent injuries otherwise.
The Emperor ended the sudden silence. “Sotorii-san, that is enough!”
Sotorii’s eyes leaped from one of the spectators to another... another. Finally, he flung the
bokken away and ran from the dōjō, a lone figure quickly lost in Lady Sun’s brilliance beyond the
door.
The Emperor finally said, “I believe we are done here,” and left without another word, his
retinue trailing behind him. Satsume appeared as impassive as ever, but Daisetsu saw the looks
exchanged among the other retainers. None of them would breathe a word of the horrible thing that
had transpired here, of course... nor would any of them forget it.
Still gripping the bokken, Dairu stepped beside Daisetsu. “Are you alright, Hantei-sama?”
Daisetsu looked at his friend and gave a tired nod. “Yes. I am fine.” He started to turn away
but stopped. “Thank you, Dairu-san, for standing as my champion.”
“I was honored to do, Daisetsu-sama.”
Of course, you were. And that is why today went so very wrong.

Today

“Of course,” Jodan said, “I can only surmise what transpired between Sotorii, Daisetsu, and your
son before they arrived in the dōjō, based on what each of my sons described. Even then, while they
agree on the essential facts of the matter, their interpretations of them are quite different.”

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 Shoju offered a rare laugh. As always, Jodan found it... off-putting. The Scorpion Clan
Champion no doubt reserved his laughter for that very effect—yet another social weapon in the
Bayushi lord’s formidable arsenal. Certainly it wasn’t intended that way this time.
“That amuses you, Shoju-san?”
“In a way,” Shoju said. “It speaks to the belief that there is only one world, the one we
inhabit. But, in reality, there are as many worlds as there are people, each true to them. And then
there is one more—that of the objective truth.”
Jodan lifted an eyebrow. “So, no one is able to see the world the way it truly is?”
“If such a person exists, your majesty, they would be... exceptional.” Shoju looked into the
garden. “Perhaps that is what Enlightenment is—the ability to see the truth in everything. To see
what things actually are, rather than what we believe or want them to be.”
Jodan found himself shifting uncomfortably at Shoju’s words. What is true? Can we even
know? I face these questions every day. He made his tone as light-hearted as he could, though. “Save
your forays into philosophy for a later time, my friend. You are not ready to shave your head and
retire into a monastery just yet.”
Another laugh from Shoju, but this time, it was quiet and brief. “I suspect that such a quiet
retirement is not to be my fate.” He looked back from the garden and, once more, shrugged his
lopsided shrug. “In any case, philosophy is just that—philosophy. Perhaps the objective truth of
things does not really matter. What does is our own, personal truths about the world, as they are the
ones we must live with.” He gave Jodan a keen look from behind his mask. “Those... and the truths
of our superiors which are, of course, more correct. Which means your truths about the world are
the most correct of all, your majesty.”
Jodan looked at the Go stone again. “There was a time when I believed that,” he said. “When
I was young and idealistic, I believed that I not only understood the world, I understood it better
than anyone else. Such belief is essential, if one is going to lead an Empire.” He looked back on
Shoju. “I am no longer so certain of that. Age is believed to bring wisdom. It may, but it also brings
doubt. If, as you say, my truths are the most correct, and even I begin to doubt them... then is it not
right for me to step down from the throne? To have someone upon it who genuinely believes their
truths are the correct ones?”
“I have little doubt Sotorii believes that very thing. Yet, you choose to not elevate him in
your place.”

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 Jodan sighed. “When I spoke to the Emerald Champion about this, I said that there was a
darkness in Sotorii.” By Emerald Champion, he meant Akodo Toturi... but that made him think of
Toturi’s predecessor, Doji Satsume. Satsume always managed to offer advice that somehow
managed to incorporate the idealism of Bushidō, while being usefully pragmatic. What would he
have said to all of this?
I miss you, Satsume, my old friend.
Shoju’s voice brought him back to the present. “All people were borne from the union of
Lady Sun’s tears and Lord Moon’s blood, your majesty. The latter is the embodiment of darkness
and sin, and it exists in all of us.”
Jodan waved a hand. “This is different. Sotorii...” He paused, seeking a path forward for his
words. He finally settled on what was in his heart...on one of the few truths of which he did remain
certain. “He worries me, Shoju-san. Ever since he was a young child, I had noted his tendency to be
willful, even cruel, but children are often such and, as they mature, leave such unpleasant traits
behind.”
As he spoke, Jodan recalled Akodo Toturi’s words, when he had first told this new Emerald
Champion of his intent to abdicate and upend his succession.
“He is young,” Toturi had said, “and the young are given to passion, often at the expense of
more considered and thoughtful words and deeds. Learning the wisdom to put aside passion is very
much part of maturing.”
That did not seem to be the case with Sotorii. Whatever his truths were, they seemed as dark
as he was.
“It finally became clear in the dōjō,” Jodan finally said, “when he dueled your son. None of
the things that should have constrained that darkness—whether the part of him that is borne from
Lord Moon, or something else entirely—did so. Not Bushidō, not even his own sense of honor.”
Jodan no longer saw Shoju, the Go board nor its stones, even the gardens. He saw only
Sotorii, after being defeated by Dairu.
It was so clear. On his face...in his eyes. An intensity to his anger and frustration, like looking
into an open forge. It was... hatred. Hatred that fueled, and then unleashed violence. Left unchecked,
he would have killed Dairu. Killed him.
“He is not fit to rule this Empire,” Jodan finally said. “If he tries to do so, he will bring
nothing but ruin to Rokugan.”

414
 Shoju nodded, but said, “He will not take his removal from the succession easily or well.”
Jodan tried to dismiss the lingering image of Sotorii in the dōjō. But his son’s face, twisted
in an almost primal rage, persisted in his mind’s eye. And when Daisetsu had grabbed his arm, to
intervene and save Dairu, that fury had only deepened.
He would have killed Daisetsu,too.
Jodan slowly shook his head. “No, Shoju-san...he will not.”

Six Months Ago

Hantei Sotorii waved aside the Scorpion bushi and strode into the Scorpion Guest House, his Seppun
Honor Guard escorts remaining outside. The Scorpion turned as he did, the man’s eyes following
Sotorii with a confused mix of surprise, shock, deference, and uncertainty. He had no doubt the man
had been given strict instructions to disallow anyone from entering who didn’t clearly have
legitimate business with his clan. But Sotorii was the Crown Prince of Rokugan. He was invited to
every place, and his business was always legitimate.
Sotorii passed along the entry hall, into an audience chamber. Servants bustled about,
arranging cushions, and laying out a tea service, preparing the room to receive... someone. As he
burst in, they all looked up like startled birds, then scattered to the margins of the room, dropping,
and pressing their foreheads to the floor. As he shed his snowy cloak and wet sandals, Sotorii pointed
at one of them.
“I am looking for my esteemed brother. I have been told he is here. Take me to him.”
The servant, a middle-aged man, just stared at the floor. Sotorii gritted his teeth, ready to
lash out, but it struck him that the man might simply not know who he was talking about. He was,
after all, a mere servant.
“He will be with Bayushi Dairu-san,” Sotorii said. “Surely you know who that is.”
Now, if he keeps up that dumbly insolent stare, then by the honored ancestors I will have
him flogged.
However, the servant bowed and started for a door. Sotorii followed. The servant led him
along several corridors and through several rooms, all decorated in the reserved and somehow
foreboding way of the Scorpion. They finally reached a door where the servant stopped, apparently

415
to request entry. Sotorii snapped, “Out of my way, you fool,” and shoved past him, sliding open the
door and pushing into the room.
Scrolls... racks and racks of them. A library. Sotorii carried on, the servant now scurrying
along behind him, passing among the racks and through the dusty smell of old paper, stopping at
the sight of Daisetsu and Dairu kneeling at a table piled with yet more scrolls. They turned as he
entered—
Their looks are scornful. Contemptuous, even.
Sotorii made himself ignore it. “I had thought, brother, that you were to practice your
calligraphy today.”
Daisetsu gave a dismissive shrug. “I did, brother. And now that is done, and I am here.”
But... I wanted us to practice together. I need you to help me with the ensō, the circle of
Enlightenment, which you draw so much better than I do...
Sotorii pushed that thought away, too. It no longer mattered, because here Daisetsu was,
doing...
He took in the piled scrolls on the table. “Here doing what, exactly?”
Daisetsu impassively placed his hands on his knees, but otherwise ignored his brother.
You just want me to go away, don’t you?
Dairu waved away the servant. “Hantei-sama, your esteemed brother and I are engaging in
a contest of wits. We each pose a question to the other, based on the great literature of the Empire.
Whoever answers the most correctly will be the victor.”
Despite himself, Sotorii was intrigued. “Why? What is the point?”
Dairu said, “The point is to...” and then trailed off, looking at Daisetsu in a way that said,
He isn’t very smart, is he?
Daisetsu sighed. “The point is to simply challenge each other, and ourselves at the same
time.”
It did sound interesting. He nodded. “Fine. I will take part as well.”
Daisetsu said nothing and just stared at the scrolls before him. He may have sighed again.
Something inside Sotorii began to crumple. You don’t want me to participate, do you? Why
not?
Dairu finally broke the silence. “Very well, Hantei-sama,” he said with a resigned weariness.
“The contest is quite simple. We—”

416
 “No,” Daisetsu said.
Sotorii looked at his brother, who now looked back with an impatient contempt hardening
his eyes.
“No,” Daisetsu said again. “We can hold another contest, at another time. This one is
between Dairu-san and me and is nearly done.”
That something crumpled even more. He was, indeed, being rejected.
Again.
Is it because I am to be Emperor someday? Is that why you resent me and want nothing to
do with me? But that is... unfair. Even an Emperor needs friends!
Sotorii had stepped closer to the table without even realizing it. It would be so easy for him
to join them in their contest. He could sit down, and choose a book, and...
But they didn’t want him to. They just wanted him to go away.
“You can hold another contest now,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound like he was pleading.
“Just start this one over again.”
Please.
But Daisetsu shook his head. “No.”
Anger began leaking from that crumpled something, hot, dark tendrils of it that tightened his
muscles, made his heart pound, his breath rasp in his chest.
Why won’t you ever let me be part of anything...?
Words abruptly bubbled up Sotorii’s throat, flung themselves from his mouth. “How dare
you refuse me! I demand—”
“I do not care what you demand!” Daisetsu snarled, leaping to his feet. “You are being rude,
brother! You are a guest in this place! It is not your place to demand anything!”
Sotorii gave up trying to hold back his hurtful anger. “You presume to call me rude? You’re
the one, brother, refusing to allow me to join in your foolish little game! As for being a mere guest,
have you forgotten I am heir to the throne? Any place in Rokugan would be honored to have me in
attendance!” He looked at Dairu. “Isn’t that right, Dairu-san?”
Please, Dairu... you understand... don’t you?
The young Scorpion looked up from the table. “Of course, Hantei-sama. Your presence here
is... is indeed an honor.” As soon as he’d finished speaking, Dairu’s eyes flicked away again; but
not so quickly that Sotorii couldn’t see the impatience in them, the desire for him to just be gone.

417
 Daisetsu shared a look with Dairu that said everything that needed to be said. Then he turned
back to Sotorii, his expression now just exasperated disdain.
“Dairu-san says only what he thinks you wish to hear. You honor no one with your presence,
Sotorii. You are an obnoxious fool, believing that just because your rear will someday fill the throne
that everyone must dance to your insufferable demands.” He shook his head. “No, brother. Not this
time. You are not welcome here... so go, now, and leave us alone.”
The words struck like a blow, and fury pooled in the wound. Everything around him seemed
to go deathly still.
Fine. If this is how it shall be...
“You have gone too far, brother,” he finally said. “You have insulted me. And by insulting
me, you insult the Celestial Heavens themselves. So, I... I challenge you to a duel, so that the
Heavens can render proper judgment upon you, in turn.”
Daisetsu sniffed. “Do not be ridiculous, brother. I am not going to duel you.”
So, you would deny me even that? The opportunity to redress this wrong? Do you really hate
me so much, brother?
“So, you admit that you have wronged me,” Sotorii said. “Or... are you simply a coward,
unwilling to back up your words with steel, as Sincerity and Honor demand?”
Daisetsu... smirked. He even seemed about to laugh. He turned, as though to share his
laughter with Dairu.
But Dairu spoke first, his voice flat. “I agree that you are an honored guest, Hantei Sotorii-
sama, but your behavior has been... it has been inappropriate. I must object to it on behalf of my
clan, whose hospitality you currently enjoy. Therefore, I... I accept your challenge on behalf of
Hantei Daisetsu-sama, and will I stand as his champion in this matter.”
Daisetsu glanced at the Scorpion. “Dairu-san, no... this is not necessary!”
“Yes, Hantei-sama,” Dairu replied, “it is. An honorable challenge has been issued. It must
be answered. Since we have both had our honor called into question, I will answer it for both of us.”
Sotorii swallowed and blinked. Dairu had made his loyalty painfully clear. But crying about
it, whether out of frustration, misery, or some mix of the two would be the epitome of humiliation.
So, he focused on his anger, instead, using it as a sort of armor against this... betrayal. Because that’s
what it was. It was betrayal.
“Fine. If you wish for the Heavens to judge you as well, Dairu-san,” he said, “so be it.”

418
 Sotorii found brief satisfaction in the way his brother’s expression finally changed from
bemused contempt to one of worry and doubt. He wondered if Daisetsu might now back down,
changing his mind and inviting Sotorii to be part of their contest after all.
It is too late for that.
“Very well then,” Sotorii said. “I shall meet you at the dōjō in the Imperial Training Grounds
in one hour.”
Before either of them could say anything else, he offered a perfunctory bow, turned his back
on them and left.
An older man bearing a Shosuro mon on his kimono intercepted him on his way out. Sotorii
recognized him as Bayushi Kachiko’s chief retainer... he thought his name might be Takeru. As the
Shosuro bowed, he said, “A thousand pardons, Hantei-sama. I was just informed you were here—”
Sotorii just waved the man away and continued into the Forbidden City, his Seppun escorts
falling in behind him. Finally, he reached a remote but familiar place in the Imperial Gardens, a
place where he often sat alone. He waved off the Seppun, leaving them to stand a discreet distance
away.
He didn’t want them, or anyone else, to see him finally cry.

By the time the hour had passed and Sotorii had entered the dōjō at the Imperial Training Grounds,
the tears were done, the desolate misery of rejection gone. Only the anger remained, and Sotorii
embraced it. Now, as he waited in the cool gloom of the dōjō, it coiled inside him, like a snake from
the Ivory Kingdoms he had once seen during a festival... a menacing, hooded thing that struck like
venomous lightning.
Movement at the dōjō’s entrance. Sotorii braced himself to face...
Not Daisetsu and Dairu, but his father. The Emperor entered the dōjō, followed by his
entourage of retainers and guards—and the Emerald Champion, Doji Satsume.
Sotorii gritted his teeth and bowed.
Why are you here, father? Have you come to stop this from happening? To deny my rightful
redress of grievance?
A coiled snake...

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 You see, father, you are part of the problem. While you live, I am not taken seriously... and
the Empire topples ever further into chaos. But when you are gone, and I am Emperor... then, I will
never be ignored or rejected again.
When I am Emperor...
A momentary pang. The Empire he would inherit was toppling into chaos. When he was
Emperor, it would be upon him to put it right.
Will I be able to?
He shoved the sudden doubt away. Of course, he would be able to. He was not his father.
He was not weak. He was not wrong.
“I understand,” the Emperor said, returning Sotorii’s bow, “that you are to duel your brother
over some dispute.”
Sotorii winced at his father’s dismissive words, some dispute, as though they had bickered
over a broken toy. “He offered me a grave insult, your majesty,” Sotorii said, fighting to keep his
voice appropriately neutral. “No samurai of the Empire would allow such a grievance to go
unanswered.”
Sotorii braced himself. Now, of course, his father would say, “You are not yet samurai...”
But even if they had been, he’d still insist that they work out their differences as brothers...as
children...
It was to Sotorii’s profound surprise, then, that the Emperor said, “Indeed, you are quite
correct. I am merely here to observe.”
“I... see. Very well, your majesty.”
The Emperor said nothing else, simply moving with his entourage to the edge of the sparring
circle in which Sotorii stood. He had only just done so when two more figures entered the dōjō.
Sotorii’s anger coiled more tightly as they approached.
The Emperor turned to the new arrivals. “Daisetsu-san,” he said, “step forward.” Daisetsu
did so, and the Emperor went on. “It is my understanding that you and Sotorii-san are to engage in
a duel over a matter of insult. It is my further understanding that Bayushi Dairu-san is to stand as
your champion.”
Daisetsu shot a scornful glance at Sotorii, then nodded. “My apologies, your majesty, for
wasting your time in such a way—”
“It is not your place to apologize,” the Emperor cut in, “unless the Heavens ordain it so.”

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 Daisetsu looked back at their father. Again, Sotorii was pleased to see a sudden look of
doubtful concern on his face.
You have brought this on yourself, brother.
In his typically dour, clipped tone, Doji Satsume said, “Ordinarily, your majesty, samurai
would draw steel to settle such a matter. But none of them have yet passed their gempuku, so they
are not entitled to wield the katana. The wooden bokken will have to suffice.”
Sotorii retrieved a wooden practice sword, then returned to the sparring circle and took his
place opposite Dairu. Satsume stepped forward from the Emperor’s retinue and named the
grievance, followed by the conditions of the duel—to first strike only, and then only to the torso, to
be counted as victory.
The Emerald Champion stepped back, leaving Sotorii facing Dairu. Both were far from
skilled duelists, so they each stood as they had been trained, trying to find a perch on the razor-edge
of explosive action and reaction that was iaijutsu, the single-strike style of dueling pioneered by
Kakita so long ago.
Sotorii breathed as Satsume had taught him, trying to relax, and finding his center, the place
where thought and intent and action all became one. But his sensei had never said he might find a
coiled snake already there, charged with bitter venom that made him want to simply lash out—
Shouting a war cry, Dairu became a blur of motion.
Sotorii shouted and moved in response, the fangs of the snake striking out—
At empty air.
A burst of pain blew through his side, turning his own shout into a hoarse gasp.
And now Dairu stood behind him, their respective strikes having taken them past one
another.
Sotorii turned to face the Scorpion. Pain blossomed across his ribs again, but he ignored it.
I am supposed to bow now... was what Sotorii thought, even as he raised the bokken and
struck out with it, a blow that would have crushed Dairu’s skull. Dairu ducked and the bokken barely
missed him.
I will not bow... not now, not ever... it isn’t right, it isn’t fair, I wasn’t wrong, I was right,
the Heavens are wrong, everyone is wrong—
Dairu raised his own bokken in defense, but Sotorii swung again, again, in time with the
words that thundered through his head.

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 I wasn’t wrong... it’s not fair, it’s not right... I wasn’t wrong—
Something grabbed his arm, holding back his furious blows.
“Sotorii...no!”
It was his brother. Daisetsu held his arm. Held him back. Protected Dairu. Protected his
friend... his friend.
But...I wasn’t wrong!
Sotorii yanked free of Daisetsu’s grip. He wanted to leave, needed to leave... to be
somewhere, anywhere else that wasn’t here. Hefting the bokken, he made to throw it away...
But Daisetsu flinched and shrank back, apparently believing he was about to be attacked.
Sotorii shook his head.
Brother, no—!
Now something else intervened, a mountain of armor bearing the Seppun laurel crest. The
honor guard stood ready to take what he believed would be blows meant for Daisetsu.
Sotorii shook his head again. “No!”
But the Seppun simply stood, an implacable wall of purpose.
“Sotorii-san,” the Emperor said, “that is enough...!”
Sotorii finally flung aside the bokken. Now he did run. He ran... away. To somewhere else.
To anywhere that wasn’t here.
He ran, perhaps never to stop.

Today

“Perhaps,” Jodan said, looking back at the azaleas, “I should not have allowed the duel to proceed.
This so-called grievance, as it was reported to me, was really such a minor thing.”
Except it wasn’t. A dislodged pebble can start an avalanche—a minor thing. If one could
forestall an avalanche and stave off calamity—then is that not the right thing to do?
Shoju’s eyes narrowed. “Your majesty, I am curious... since the incident in question occurred
in our clan’s guest house, who reported it to you, such that you could arrange to attend the dōjō in
the first place?”
Jodan couldn’t resist a smile. “Does it bother you, Master of Secrets, that I am able to learn
of things that occur in even your shadowy holdings?”

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 “As I said, I was simply... curious.”
Jodan said nothing, enjoying a rare moment of advantage over the Scorpion Champion. But
the smile soon faded. “I had hoped allowing them to duel would serve to teach each of them
something of Bushidō, and the sacred act of the duel. To teach them a useful lesson, as it were.” He
minutely adjusted a stone on the Go board. “However, as I said, Sotorii failed to adhere to Bushidō
at all. By comparison, his brother was a virtual paragon of the tenets.” He looked back up at Shoju.
“I believe lessons were learned... just not the ones I envisioned.”
“And they were not just learned by your sons and Dairu.”
“No, they were not. I learned valuable lessons, as well.” Jodan realized he was beginning to
slouch and forced himself to sit upright. “Which returns us to the matter at hand. You are correct
that Sotorii will not take his brother’s ascension well. It is more unpleasantness, but it cannot be
denied.”
“It will, indeed, be something that needs to be addressed.”
Yet another problem I am leaving to my successor; yet another problem for which I simply
have no solution.
Jodan rubbed his aching left hand. “What would you suggest?”
“I confess that I am not sure. Nonetheless, he does represent a potentially disruptive
influence.”
Jodan gave Shoju a narrow-eyed look. Does he speak in veiled terms now, to hold an
advantage over me? He considered simply allowing it to pass but couldn’t. “I must admit to some
concern, when I hear the Champion of the Scorpion Clan declare someone a potentially disruptive
influence.”
“Your majesty, it would be most inappropriate for even a champion of a Great Clan to make
any such statement about the Emperor’s son. I speak now as your proposed Imperial Regent. In that
capacity, I do put voice to my concerns regarding Sotorii—particularly regarding what role he will
play after his brother’s ascension.”
“Well, he will be in the same position as any younger sibling of the heir. He would be married
to a suitable Otomo and given an appropriate Imperial office.”
“In other words, oblivion. That is how he will see it, anyway, even if you were to name him
Imperial Advisor or Chancellor. In fact, such senior appointments would probably be even more
problematic, as they would keep Sotorii close to the throne and his brother, the Emperor.”

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 Sudden weariness rolled over Jodan like a slow wave. He should put it aside, focus his mind
on this, find a solution...
But I am so tired. So tired of second-guessing, of being uncertain if what I do is the right
thing or the wrong thing.
He finally said, “I have every confidence you will find a solution to recommend to me
regarding this matter, Shoju-san.”
This one, and so many more.
“I will give the matter due consideration, your majesty,” Shoju said, then apparently returned
his attention to the game and his move. Jodan was content to let him, and just sit in the warmth of
Lady Sun. But a stray thought plucked at him.
“Actually,” Jodan said, “it is my turn to be curious about something. I wonder about the role
of your son in this whole affair. By all accounts, he conducted himself honorably and correctly.”
“That is an issue, your majesty?”
“Of course not. But... he is your son and will, someday, ascend to your place as Champion
of the Scorpion.” Jodan gave his friend a thin smile. “I have become well accustomed to his father’s
subtle and many-layered approach to things. I cannot help but wonder if the son follows closely in
his father’s footsteps.”
“You wonder if Dairu influenced, or even manipulated what transpired between your sons.”
“An unseemly question, when put so bluntly.”
Shoju’s eyes smiled again. “But you do not withdraw it.” The Scorpion Champion had
picked up a stone to place on the board and now studied it. “Dairu did confess to me that he saw an
opportunity in the strife between your sons. He believed that by offering to stand as Daisetsu’s
champion, he would further ingratiate himself to your younger son. At the same time, he believed
that besting the heir to the throne in an honorable duel would generally enhance his reputation.”
“Although win the enmity of the one whom, as far he knew, would one day be Emperor.”
“A fact of which he was well aware. Yet, for good or for ill, and for reasons known only to
him, he has placed his loyalty with Daisetsu. The loyalty of a Scorpion, once offered, will stand
beyond dishonor or death.”
Jodan met Shoju’s eyes and nodded. “I know.”
Shoju again resumed studying the Go board, but Jodan stood. “I am afraid, my friend,” he
said, “that I grow very weary and must rest.”

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 “We can resume our game another time, then.”
Jodan looked at the gardens around them... at the stately buildings of the Forbidden City
beyond them.
And beyond that, the Empire.
I am so tired.
“That Go set,” he said, “was a gift from the Crane Champion to one of my predecessors,
Hantei XXVI, at a Winter Court. It has passed from each Emperor to the next ever since.” Once
again, he met Shoju’s eyes. “That stone I played, whether its placement was wise or foolish, was
the last I shall ever play on it. This game is now yours, Shoju-san.”
“Your majesty, I am not worthy to accept such a beautiful—”
“Please,” Jodan said, “let us stipulate that I have offered, and you have refused it twice. Now,
take it. I am sure you will find no lack of opponents, both old and new.”
Shoju offered a bow of thanks. “Of that, your majesty, I have no doubt.”
Jodan took his leave of the teahouse but didn’t return immediately to his chambers. Instead,
he wandered the gardens for a time, simply enjoying the sight and fragrance of the many blossoms.

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The house had once been the finest in the village, with a tiled roof and sliding doors of paper instead
of wood. Now, the tiles were cracked and fallen, and dirt and dried leaves had piled up in the corners,
blown by the wind through the gaps where those doors had been.
Floorboards dipped perilously beneath Satto’s feet as she wandered through the abandoned
house. She could hear her companions talking outside, making arrangements for the days to come—
including the question of where Hige-sensei would sleep.
With any other group, the answer would have been the house Satto stood in. The floor might
sag, but it was still in better condition than any other building in what had once been White Flower
Village. But it had belonged to the village’s samurai overseer, and Hige-sensei was too humble to
lay his head anywhere associated with the domination of the samurai class.
A torn screen stood partially shut, closing off the next room. Satto forced it aside and
wrinkled her nose at the smell that wafted out. Some wild animal had nested here—probably a
raccoon dog or fox.
The overseer had taken nearly everything with him when he left, but a few objects remained:
a handful of old pots in the kitchen, a low table with an unsteady leg. She nudged one foot through
a pile of debris at the bottom of the display alcove and found a fallen wall scroll, crumpled into a
stiff pile. The paper was old and brittle, cracking as she unfolded it, but the kanji were still legible:
Straightened circumstances are the armor of an unmarred soul.
The creak of the floorboards warned her that someone else had entered. Satto looked up to
see Ichirō.

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 He was new among them, and young enough that Satto’s impulse was to think of him as a
boy. But Ichirō believed in the tenets of the Perfect Land Sect as fervently as any of them, in the
mercy of Shinsei and the death of virtue in the world. He’d seen the death of that virtue firsthand.
“What did you find?” Ichirō asked.
Satto’s lip curled. “Confirmation of what we already knew: that whoever lived here was a
hypocrite.”
She passed the fragile scroll to Ichirō, who studied it with a keen eye. “This mark here.” He
tapped the red chop in the bottom-left corner. “That’s the seal of Seiya no Agasha Fukuai. Not the
most renowned calligrapher in Dragon lands, but well respected. I doubt Mirumoto Hyōgin was the
sort of person to collect her work. This must have been a gift—something to impress his guests with.
Not that he would have had many guests out here.”
“You sound like you knew him.”
“Only by reputation. He wrote a letter every season petitioning to be reassigned to someplace
less obscure.” Ichirō’s jaw tightened. “It must have seemed like a blessing to him when the village
declined enough that he could argue for it to be abandoned.”
More than a few villages in Dragon lands had met that fate. As their population shrank, the
samurai were forcing peasants to leave their homes and move to other settlements. Those callous
measures wound up benefiting the Perfect Land Sect: Hige-sensei and his followers could spread
their theology in neglected valleys, then let their converts carry the message when the samurai
relocated them.
Ichirō tossed the scroll back into the alcove, careless of the damage. “A better man would
have taken this with him, as a reminder not to crave riches or attention. Such things will strip a man
of his honor even faster than cowardice.”
“Honor,” Satto said contemptuously. “If samurai spent less time thinking about honor, they
might be better at doing what’s right.”
“Honor is what’s right,” Ichirō shot back.
A silent laugh huffed out of her. He’d been raised a clan samurai, steeped in the philosophy
of Bushidō and its tenets. Satto had been born a rōnin and had only ever known the code from
outside its walls. She saw with a clarity Ichirō might never achieve.

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 But that didn’t stop her from trying to open his eyes. “I used to believe that,” she said, “until
compassion moved me to help a peasant who swore he was in desperate circumstances. I even
convinced my sensei to assist me—because honor said it was the right thing to do.”
She smiled thinly at Ichirō. “Do you know where we were?”
His brow furrowed as he tried to remember what he’d heard about her past. “Ryokō Owari?”
“Also known as the ‘City of Lies.’ We found out later that the peasant we helped was a
smuggler. The whole thing was a trap to get my sensei in trouble.” Even now, the memory made
Satto’s shoulders tense. “The Scorpion understand honor better than anyone. They know that
Bushidō is a system of control: exploited by those who don’t believe in it, to manipulate those who
do.”
Moments like this were what made her see Ichirō as a mere boy. He wasn’t much younger
than her, but he didn’t hesitate in striking back. “So, you no longer believe in compassion? Honesty?
Justice?”
“I didn’t say that. But Bushidō makes false promises, claiming that if you just adhere to its
requirements, everything will turn out as it should. The truth is that ruthless people just leverage
those requirements against you so that everything will turn out the way they want.”
She’d tried so hard to make Kitsuki Shomon see that. We didn’t knowingly do anything
wrong, she’d said. Why should we bear the punishment for it? If Shomon had just allowed Satto to
fix the problem—
But no, Shomon believed in honor so much that she even taught its tenets to peasants. She’d
insisted on giving honest testimony, despite knowing it would damn her. Meanwhile, Satto fled.
She didn’t hear until months later that Shomon had volunteered to accept the punishment for
both of them.
And the Scorpion had wasted no time in exploiting that even further. Shomon had been
allowed to keep running her dōjō... after she swore that, if her teachings led any student of hers to
transgress, she would share their punishment as well.
Kitsuki Shomon was a beautiful, shining example of honor, and Satto pitied her.
Ichirō had no good response. Instead, he shifted uncomfortably, then said, “We’re needed
outside.”
Satto was more than ready to leave the stinking confines of the house. Out in the sunlight
and fresh air, they found that the debate over Hige-sensei’s lodgings had been settled in favor of a

428
tent set further back in the village. His was joined by a few others, indistinguishable in fabric or
size, because the leader of the Perfect Land Sect had no interest in luxury or ostentation.
He didn’t need a fancy scroll to remind himself of what was right.
“Will anyone come?” Ichirō asked, turning to scan the half-collapsed huts of the abandoned
village. “No one will be able to obtain travel papers, not for something like this. And the patrols will
stop them if they don’t have papers.”
More naiveté. Ichirō hadn’t been among them for that long; he underestimated just what
devotees of the Perfect Land were capable of. She said, “The heimin know more back paths and
game trails than samurai patrols have ever dreamed of. Don’t underestimate Hige-sensei’s followers,
Ichirō-san: his people will come.”

They had chosen the village with care, picking one far enough out of the way not to attract notice,
while still being within reach for the peasants who would risk arrest and flogging to hear Hige-
sensei speak. The abandoned field just south of the houses was shaped like a huge, shallow bowl,
allowing everyone to see and hear the sect leader without him having to seat himself on a platform
above them all.
Now that field was overflowing with people. Despite the risk, hundreds of people had made
their ways through the mountains to this spot, bringing with them bundles of food and gifts that
Hige-sensei invariably refused: another act of humility that only made them admire him more.
Satto wanted to count how many there were, but she had to keep her eyes on the various
approaches from the east. Ichirō and two of Hige-sensei’s other lieutenants were doing the same to
the north, south, and west. The peasants might have succeeded in making their way to the abandoned
village, but that didn’t mean they’d done so without being noticed. The eventual interference of
samurai was not only a possibility, but a near certainty.
Her vantage point, high in a birch tree, let Satto see far into the distance while still being
able to make out Hige-sensei’s words, unless the wind blew against her.
The beginning of the speech was familiar material: his usual exhortations about restoring
virtue in this, the Age of Declining Virtue. Satto wondered whether Hige-sensei was deliberately
ambiguous in his phrasing. At past gatherings, some people had taken “restoring” to mean that
samurai would reform, ending the injustices that made the lower classes suffer. Others took it as a
promise that the samurai would someday be overthrown. It would be clever of him to let both parties

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continue to believe their interpretation—a way of attracting a broad base of support without
committing to any single path of action.
No, Satto decided. In his own way, Hige-sensei was every bit as sincere as Kitsuki Shomon.
He believed in his own message, and the strength of that belief carried others with him.
As it had carried Satto herself.
Then, Hige-sensei’s voice changed, and Satto found herself paying closer attention.
“My children,” he said, “I have something to tell you. Last night, in my meditations, I entered
the Perfect Land.”
An awed wave of murmurs rose from the crowd.
Hige-sensei, cross-legged on a simple mat, spread his hands in benediction. “Yes, my spirit
journeyed into that blessed region of Tengoku where Shinsei awaits the faithful, and there I spoke
with the Little Teacher. With only a few words, he enlightened me, showing me the true power of
the kie.”
The murmur shifted, from gasps and surprise to the mantra of their sect: Shoshi ni kie. “Belief
in the Little Teacher” or “absolute trust in the Little Teacher” depending on how it is written.
Achieving Enlightenment didn’t require long hours of meditation or esoteric practices. It
only required Shinsei’s aid.
“These words he has taught us do not only have the power to save individual souls!” Hige-
sensei said, raising his voice so that it would carry over the growing rumble of the kie. “Spoken by
a true believer, they will carry the soul of that believer into the Perfect Land after death, to gain
Enlightenment at the feet of Shinsei and escape the suffering of this world. But the Little Teacher
told me that the kie will also be the salvation of Rokugan itself!”
Satto’s head whipped around. Saving the Empire? She’d never heard Hige-sensei speak of
that before. And if he’d been deliberately building toward such an idea, she and the others would
have known.
A shiver danced across her skin. This morning, she would have said that salvation for
Rokugan was as much a delusion as Shomon’s belief in honor. But, if Hige-sensei spoke the truth...
Many of his listeners were bent to the ground now, their hands outstretched and heads
pressed to the dirt, their recitation of the kie aligning until it seemed like the entire field spoke with
one passionate voice. The swelling wave of their faith seemed to lift Hige-sensei up, though he
remained seated on his mat.

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 He cried out, “Today, we are few in number. But if we spread the blessing of the kie—if
enough people across the Empire recite those words with pure hearts—then Shinsei himself will
return to Rokugan and usher in a new Age of Celestial Virtue!”
Satto gripped the tree as if it were trying to throw her off. The return of the Little Teacher?
Impossible! He had come at the dawn of the Empire to instruct the holy Kami, beginning the first
Age of Celestial Virtue, but that was a thousand years ago. After that, he had vanished—some said
to visit foreign lands and bring them Enlightenment, others said into the Void. The teachings of the
Perfect Land revealed the truth: that he now dwelt in Tengoku. Regardless of the answer, surely he
was gone and would not return.
But it was even more impossible to look at Hige-sensei’s expression and not believe.
Could that humble man truly have reached the Perfect Land in spirit, and received this
message?
The people in the field certainly believed he had. They were crying out in joy, giving thanks
to Shinsei, shouting the kie as if volume alone would be enough to beckon him back. Satto saw
parents embracing children, weeping into the rough fabric of their kimono, rejoicing in the
knowledge that their sons and daughters would be spared suffering not only after death, but in this
life.
A gust of wind made the branch beneath Satto sway, sending apprehension through her like
a spike. That feeling doubled when she realized—the path.
She’d stopped watching.
Satto wrenched herself around again. In the distance, she saw movement: a faint cloud of
summer dust, rising up from a road that should see no traffic now that White Flower Village had
been abandoned.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. The samurai were coming.

No one who traveled with Hige-sensei was unfamiliar with woodcraft. They moved swiftly but
silently, avoiding ridges where they might easily be spotted, following a creek to break the trail.
Fading into the distance, Satto could hear a powerful mass of voices speaking in unison:
Shoshi ni kie. Shoshi ni kie. Shoshi ni kie.

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 Despite the need for stealth, most of the people with her whispered the same words. Hige-
sensei mouthed them silently, his face marked with tears. They arose from both sorrow and joy,
Satto thought: sorrow for the fate of those left behind, and joy at this evidence of their devotion.
He hadn’t wanted to leave. Unlike the false monks who preached on city street corners or
plied their deceptive theology in villages, Hige-sensei held to his philosophy even in the face of
danger. Had his lieutenants permitted it, he would still be in that field, leading his followers in their
recitation of the kie.
Of course, he had advised those same followers to leave. They had risked themselves by
coming there, but that did not mean they had to die for their faith. Some of them listened, slipping
away through the trees, scattering to the four winds like dandelion seeds.
One old woman spoke for those who remained. “If the samurai kill us,” she said, “then
Shinsei will welcome us into the Perfect Land. And maybe our example will teach them the true
way.”
Satto doubted it. She’d known too many samurai to believe they would learn anything from
peasants, especially those dying on the edges of their swords. But Hige-sensei had blessed that old
woman and all who stayed with her, instructing them not to offer any resistance, but simply to stand
their ground and keep praying. His parting words to them were, “May the power of your dedication
hasten the Little Teacher’s return.”
Soon enough, the voices passed out of hearing. Because Satto and the others had gone too
far? Or because something had silenced them? She strained her ears, but heard no clash of metal, no
screams other than those of hawks. Even the repetitions of the kie in their own group had gradually
stopped as they bent their attentions to the difficult task of traversing the mountains, back toward
the village they had claimed as their current base of operations.
They hadn’t been foolish enough to hold the gathering too close to base. It would take at
least three days to return, traveling cross-country. A hard three days, too, because they hadn’t spared
the time to break the tents down before leaving the village. When they stopped for the night, they
had nothing more than pine needles for their futons and branches for their roofs.
No one complained, least of all Hige-sensei. Everyone merely set to work gathering wood
for a tiny fire, water for cleaning, and what wild food could supplement the rations they carried.
Satto took the opportunity to draw Hige-sensei aside. She had been with him longer than just
about anyone: not since the beginning, but those who were there before her were almost all gone,

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dead or arrested, or sent out to bring the teachings of the Perfect Land to other parts of the Empire.
Hige-sensei never disdained chores—he was digging up reeds from the bank of a creek so they could
boil and eat the roots—but despite his humility, he took persuasion much more readily from people
he had known a long time.
“Sensei,” she said, “your news of Shinsei’s eventual return is truly wondrous.”
Sadness had weighed upon Hige-sensei for much of the day, but a little of his usual twinkle
returned as he prompted her. “I can hear the ‘but’ in your words, even if you have not spoken it.”
“However, I would respectfully advise you not to talk too openly about your visit to the
Perfect Land. Not yet.”
He handed her a bunch of reeds, an unspoken request for her to wash the dirt from their
roots. “You fear reprisal from samurai.”
Satto began scrubbing. “Sensei, the kie cannot spread if we provoke them too rapidly. The
Phoenix have already outlawed it in their lands; if the Dragon do the same, we will face great
difficulty.”
“Why should anyone try to suppress the hope of the Little Teacher’s return?” Hige-sensei
knelt alongside her with another bunch of reeds. “That was rhetorical, child; you needn’t answer. I
know why people in power might seek to prevent such a wonderful thing. But whether I speak of it
or not, the news will not be kept secret—not when I have shared it with so many people.”
Only if they survived, Satto thought.
She could not bear the thought of watching Hige-sensei die, cut down where he stood by
some angry samurai, or worse, dragged off for public execution. He would face it with dignity, and
his example might inspire a few...but without him, the Perfect Land Sect would fall apart. He was
the soul of their way—and no doubt that was why Shinsei had spoken with him.
She would do whatever it took to prevent his death.
But Satto had learned her lesson with Shomon. Hige-sensei did not need to know what steps
she took to protect him.
If that meant there would be no place for her in the Perfect Land—or in the redeemed Empire
he envisioned—that would be a small price to pay.
“I understand,” Satto said. “But still, Sensei... please be cautious.”
He patted her sleeve with one damp, muddy hand. “Trust in the Little Teacher, child. It will
be enough.”

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The silence that hung over Khanbulak at night was a heavy thing, more total and fragile than the
steppes. It was the silence of a thief with his heart in his throat, of a wayward child sneaking out for
mischief in the middle of the night. When Moto Rurame rode the streets, threading her great blue
roan stallion past resplendent halls and between merchant’s pavilions, it was the silence of a predator
on the hunt. Especially tonight.
Hunting a spy was a rare treat. Rurame had greeted the peasant’s report of a gaijin still in
the city with no small amount of excitement.
The city straddled the border of Rokugan, a border marked by li after li of cairns. The
Unicorn Clan permitted gaijin to make their encampments outside the city walls, on the far side of
the border, and to enter the city during the day to trade. But as the sun set, the great gongs sounded,
and the gates closed. Any foreigner caught in the city after nightfall would be put to death, in
accordance with the Emperor’s law. The White Guard rode the length of that border and the Sand
Road beyond. Rurame’s Scarlet Banners guarded the city itself, and it was by their hands that rogue
gaijin would die.
A duty as difficult and glorious as mucking out stables. Rurame had mucked her share of
stables as a girl. In some ways, she would prefer that duty to the stewardship of Khanbulak.
Sky whickered beneath her, sensing her tension. Another horse answered somewhere to her
left, one of her minghan a street away. There was still no sign of the rogue gaijin. We’ve covered
three-fourths of the city already. If they escape...
No. That was impossible.

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 At the next street, she halted Sky with a touch of her hand. The horse stood stock-still, ears
forward, watching and listening as intently as his rider. From the left, hoofsteps, and scarred Ariq
atop shaggy Khash. “Nothing, noyan,” he said. “All the gates are secure.” Rurame looked to the
right where Tani stood in her stirrups. She glanced Rurame’s way and shook her head—nothing.
“No matter,” Rurame said. “The hunt closes in.” She stood in her stirrups and spread her
arms so her nearest warriors could see and pass on the orders. She moved both hands forward in an
encircling motion and paused long enough to see Sorghaghtani, Ariq, and the next warriors in line
repeat the command. They used the same technique in the massive, traditional hunts on the steppe.
Nothing would slip through their net.
Rurame leaned forward and Sky surged ahead, galloping past the billowing walls of an Ujik-
style tent-manor to her right. She stopped again at the next street and listened... there! She let out a
whoop, echoed by Ariq and Tani, and drove Sky forward, cutting through a stockyard piled high
with foreign fabrics, carpets, and bales of cotton. With a leap, Sky cleared a small cart and then
Rurame was upon her prey.
The man had nearly made it to Khanbulak’s white stone walls when he caught sight of
Rurame. He cried out and dashed the remaining distance as she eased Sky into a canter. The wall
was at least twenty shaku tall. It was unthinkable that he would climb it before she reached him...
and yet, he scrambled upward like a spider.
A hidden rope. How long has that been there? She cursed as she reined Sky to a clattering
halt beneath the wall. Already the spy was out of reach. If he escapes, all the world will know my
shame. “There goes Moto Rurame, given the simplest task in the clan, and she failed.”
An arrow streaked from the darkness, clattering off the stone a handbreadth from the gaijin’s
head. Ariq cursed as his shaggy dun mare trotted closer, notching another arrow to his bow. Tani
approached from the right, laughing. “If he were a hare you’d not get another shot, Ariq.”
“No,” barked Rurame. “I want this one to answer questions.” Rurame reached behind her
saddle and retrieved the lariat coiled there. The gaijin was already halfway up the wall—just at the
edge of what she could reach. Rurame spun the lariat above her head, threw, and watched the loop
close around the spy’s ankle.
“Good throw, noyan!” cheered Ariq. He’d put his bow away and now turned his horse in a
tight circle, sword in hand. The gaijin struggled and Rurame felt her grin escape, like a wolf, as she
looped her end of the rope around her saddle. It’s possible you’re stronger than me, gaijin, but

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you’re not stronger than Sky. Rurame turned Sky and tapped, once, with her heels. The horse shot
forward like Ariq’s misaimed arrow, and the hapless gaijin had no chance. He was plucked from his
perch as if by a giant and fell to earth as surely as a stone.
Tani and Ariq had pounced already by the time she got Sky back to the gaijin’s side. Blood
streaked down his face, and one of his arms bent at an angle that was surely unhealthy, but he lived.
He lives, and I have not failed.
“I’ll have your name, first, gaijin,” she said in Ujik. Tani translated into Nehiri for her, but
Rurame had no interest in learning a barbarian tongue.
“You may call me Hamid,” the gaijin said, also in Ujik. “I am a humble merchant—”
“Lie to me again and I’ll remove your tongue,” Rurame snapped. “That will slow
interrogation considerably, and prolong your suffering for months. Neither of us want that.”
“Noyan,” said Ariq. He held a broken cage in his hands, the sort that might keep a bird. “He
dropped this when he fell.”
“A messenger pigeon?” Rurame mused. “Empty; he’s already sent it.”
“We can dispatch a hawk after it,” Tani suggested.
“Not at night we can’t.” Rurame shook her head. “Speak, Hamid. To whom did you send
this bird?” Hamid began chanting in Nehiri. “Tani?”
“He is praying,” Tani said.
Rurame drew her knife. “He’d better.”

Later, when it was over, Rurame stood on the tall white walls of Khanbulak and stared at the horizon.
Dark as the ocean, the steppe spread before her, its grasses blowing in quiet night waves. We are
meant to hunt and ride free across the steppe, not stay tethered to Khanbulak like an ox on a string.
The Shinjo killed us the day they ordered Moto Qaro Khan to build a city here.
Ariq climbed the stair behind her. She felt him bow, waiting for her attention. She closed her
eyes, took a silent breath, and turned. “Speak.”
“It’s confirmed, noyan. He knew which gate Shinjo Shono’s party left by, where they were
bound, how many were with him. All his information was correct.”
“I can think of no purpose for sending that information west, save for assassins. Can you,
Ariq?”

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 Ariq shook his scarred head. “We could ride after,” he suggested. “Not that we would be
likely to reach Shono in time. It would be such a shame if the Shinjo heir died on the road.”
He would do it if I asked him. Rurame turned to stare across the steppe again. A spray of
lights clustered close to the wall, torches and firepits and gleaming lanterns from Ujik encampments
on the Rokugan side of the city. Nomads, letting themselves be tied down by the pull of Khanbulak.
He would kill the Shinjo heir at a word from me. It would serve Altansarnai Khan right for saddling
us with this blight of a town. Or better yet, let him die. Shono was a weak, sullen child when he
passed through my city. What hope would he have on the Sand Road?
She let herself consider it for a brief, brilliant moment. But no. Her duty was clear, and she
would not be known as a woman who shirked her duty.
“My Scarlet Banners guard Khanbulak,” Rurame said. “Tonight, we have done so well. You
will ride to Ögodei Khan’s a and bring word to my brother of all that has transpired here. I will find
Chagatai Noyan and send him after his cousin.”
“As you command.” Ariq bowed again, then ambled down the stairs toward his waiting
horse. Rurame stared into the night a while longer. However, if Chagatai makes a different choice,
that is not on me.

“No!” cried Chagatai as he fell. “How can this be? How could I, Moto Chagatai, noyan of the White
Guard, victor of a dozen battles, heir-apparent to the Moto Khan, how can I be defeated thus!?” He
held one arm aloft. Tiny hands grabbed it and a small body dragged it down to the dusty ground.
A small, round, frowning face appeared above him. “Uncle,” it said. “Fight properly. You
are only playing with us.”
“Against such a horde?” Chagatai chuckled as he sat upright, scattering nieces and nephews
in all directions as he did. “Even the mighty Chagatai could not hope to defeat such enemies single-
handed, Altani.”
Screaming, waving sticks in the air like swords, the horde dispersed, racing around to the
back of the yurt. The horses, hobbled nearby, pointed their ears and snorted disapproval.
Altani remained, staring up at her uncle through narrowed eyes. “Do you really think I could
beat you someday?”

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 “Little Eagle, I only know this: when the day comes, I’d rather fight at your side than against
you, hey?” He stood and dusted off his pants as Altani nodded. She lifted her stick over her shoulder
and followed after her brothers and sisters.
“I am lucky to have such fierce protectors!” The laughter and the voice were as familiar and
comfortable as his saddle. Its owner stepped forward and clasped his hand, then pulled him close
and sniffed his cheek. “What brings the heir to the Khan to my little ordu?”
“What reason do I need beyond visiting my sister?” He sniffed her cheek and stepped back.
Khojin was some ten years his senior, and already threads of grey were working their way through
her dark hair, but she had the same smile that crinkled her eyes, as she had in their youth. “You look
well, Elder Sister. Your children are healthy and...”
She laughed again. “And numerous?”
“It’s a larger family than ours,” he admitted. Aside from himself and Khojin, their father had
only two other children they knew about. Chagatai had lost count of Khojin’s brood somewhere
around six.
“Eight children, so far.” Khojin leaned back against the wall of her yurt, looking smug. There
were a dozen other yurts in a straight line, east and west, smaller and humbler than hers, all the doors
facing south. Together, they made up the ordu, a village that could be placed on carts and hauled
away at a moment’s notice. “And my herd does well this year. Fifty horses, two hundred sheep.”
Chagatai’s eyebrows rose. As the Ujik measure things, Khojin’s wealth approached his own,
for all that her clothes were the plain wool and leathers of a herder. “It seems this life agrees with
you, sister.” He thought back to their youth, to Khojin whispering in his ear as she taught him to
bend his bow, pulling him out of the dirt as she taught him to ride. “If you’d—”
“Enough, Chagatai.” She raised her hands, fending off an old argument. “You are the heir,
with the Shinjo mother. I am a herder. If the Khan calls, my ordu can supply a dozen warriors; I’ve
no desire to be a noyan, to gain glory on the battlefield. I have my horses, my sheep, two husbands,
a wife, and eight children. I am happy.” She smiled at his expression. “Not enough for the mighty
Chagatai, perhaps, but enough for me.”
He nodded and let the matter drop. An accident of birth makes me my father’s heir. Khojin
is as capable as anyone I know, but she lacks the ambition to seize what should be hers. He walked
Khojin back to where his warriors were gathered, ruminating as she greeted them and saw to the
necessities of getting them and their horses fed and stabled. She did it with quick efficiency and

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authority, as only the mistress of an ordu and mother of eight could. The Shinjo could not ask for a
better Khan. Efficient, reliable, unambitious. He found himself grinning. Bad luck for them they’re
getting me, instead.
He turned to enter Khojin’s yurt, belly already rumbling at the thought of the feast she would
assemble in his honor, and from the corner of his eye saw a corpse staring at him from between the
two closest tents.
An omen from the Lords of Death. A specter come to claim him. So I die? But it was only a
moment, and then she turned and stalked away, and Chagatai saw she was not a corpse after all. He
followed, and found another yurt, smaller, its walls of black felt, its door facing north. Two poles
adorned with skulls, bones, and white horse-tail banners stood before it. The horde of children,
dimly heard running among the carts far to the left, gave this yurt a wide berth. Chagatai stepped
through the door.
The apparition sat across the circular tent from him, poking at the manure fire with a stick.
Her stringy hair adorned with bones and feathers, and her face nearly hidden under layers of white
paint, like a skull. “Is this outfit for my benefit, Auntie?” Chagatai asked. Not his real aunt, but it
was the appropriate form of address for his sister’s mother.
“I serve the Lords of Death,” she snapped. “Nothing I do is for your benefit, Moto Chagatai.”
The family name was a reminder: Khojin’s mother was no Moto, no kin to him. Ujin Hogelun came
from one of the lesser Ujik families. They were nominal vassals to the Moto, although in the free-
spirited Unicorn Clan, such bonds of vassalage were mainly theoretical. As a witch, none could
order around Hogelun, even her sometime-husband Ögodei Khan. “Sit, boy. I will cast the bones.”
He sat, lifting his swords from his belt and placing them behind him. Hogelun stood and
walked around the tent, dropping a wooden ladle into a clay jug of mare’s milk. As she reached each
ongghot, the felt ancestor idols on the yurt’s walls, she lifted the ladle and sprinkled it with milk.
“Drink, o Lords of Death,” she chanted, “and be sated. Let the wisdom of my ancestors guide me.”
After she finished, she plucked a bag from where it dangled from her belt, opened it and in
one quick gesture threw the ankle bones within to the floor. Her brow furrowed as she read the
shagai. “Horse, sheep, camel, goat.” She stared intently at Chagatai. “Some good, some bad. Your
fate is yours to make, boy.”
“What of the clan, Auntie?” He nodded to the bones, their polished white shapes gleaming
in the firelight. “Does Altansarnai Khan lead us to glory, or disaster?”

439
 “Are those the only options?” Hogelun snapped. “An empire won on the back of the horse
must be ruled from the back of a horse. The Shinjo Khan nearly forgot, nearly let herself be traded
away like chattel. But she chose to cleave to our traditions, our beliefs, rather than bow to the
Walking Clans. Do you now worry that the war will go poorly, or do you worry that the glory will
pass you by, will rain down on Shinjo shoulders and leave you just another noyan guarding a border
no one cares to attack?” She jabbed at the fire again. “Draw your sword, boy.”
Chagatai took his sword from where it lay and pulled it from its sheath. The curved blade
shone in the flickering light of the fire, now red with blood, now gold with glory. “Altansarnai has
chosen strength,” he said. “But will the next great khan?” He thought of Shono, his cousin, the
empty stare he’d worn on his ride west. “Or the one after? The cities, the court, Rokugan itself pulls
at us, makes us weak. Is our destiny to become just another servant of a throne that cares little for
us?”
“Destiny?” Hogelun snorted and nodded to his sword. “That is your fate, Chagatai. That is
your destiny. Your future is at the edge of this blade. That is your clan’s strength. With a sword in
your hand, you make your own future. The bones don’t control what is to come, boy, you do. The
Lords of Death come for us all, in the end. Death lies ahead of you.” She jabbed at the fire once
more. “Hold fast to your sword and cut your own path to the future, boy. Leave me; you are needed.”
In a daze, he stumbled from the yurt. There was a commotion at the front of the ordu, and
he picked his way forward to find his actual aunt dismounting from her bay mare. “Chagatai,”
Rurame said, tucking her helm under her arm and stepping forward to clasp his hand. “I bring news.”
“Stay a while, Auntie,” said Khojin. “I’m preparing a feast for Chagatai’s warriors; it’s no
trouble to add you to the party.”
“Chagatai’s men will be leaving shortly,” Rurame said. She led Chagatai into the midst of
the horses, their bulk and quiet murmuring providing privacy for the news she shared, and told him
of the spy and the assassins sent after Shinjo Shono. “The Sand Road is beyond the duty of my
Scarlet Banners,” she said. “You must ride west and do what must be done.”
“‘What must be done?’” Chagatai reached up to touch Daichin’s neck, stilling the horse as
he shifted and snorted. “Speak plainly, Auntie.”
“Che,” Rurame spat. “What would you have me say? The Shinjo Khan rules over us. She
ties us to that blasted city. She marries our fine strong youths away to never ride the steppes again,
and she gifts us gold and poison.” She settled her helm back over her long black braid. “Whether

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Shono lives or dies makes no difference to me, but the Moto must be seen at least attempting to save
the fool’s life.” She climbed upon her horse and vanished into the night.
Chagatai stared at the sword, still in his hand. Your future is at the edge of this blade. If
Shono were to die on the Sand Road, who would be Great Khan then?
Güyük approached, wiping airag from his mouth. “Well, noyan? What do we do?”
Chagatai sheathed his sword and pulled himself onto his great black stallion. “Mount up. We
ride west!”

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442
Hour of the Boar, The Forbidden City, The Imperial Domicile

The door to the family study creaked as Sotorii slid it aside. His father’s back—hunched and
emblazoned with the symbol of the chrysanthemum—drew his eye from the far side of the room.
Perhaps this should wait until tomorrow. It was late in the evening, and his father was meditating
anyway. He wouldn’t want to be interrupted. Swallowing hard, Sotorii tamped down the thought.
He’d waited too long already, and besides, surely his father had heard the door open. There was no
backing down now.
Sotorii’s eyes wandered as he crossed the room. He was intimately familiar with its contents,
recalling lectures before generational artifacts, instructions on Bushidō in his father’s displeased
voice. Displeased, like he was now.
He stopped at a proper distance. His father sat in the lotus position, head lowered before the
ancestral sword of the Hantei, like a stone idol. With the lines drawn by every object and piece of
furniture leading the eye to him, it was as if the entire room was bowing to the Emperor.
“Father?”
The Hantei turned. The weight of his father’s graying eyes flooded him like the moonlight
through the paper screen that shielded the courtyard window.
“Sotorii,” his father said, “why are you still up?”
Taking a deep breath, Sotorii folded into a bow, placing his forehead on the straw tatami
floor. “I’ve come to apologize, father, for my recent behavior.”

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 Silence. He searched his father’s face, but as always, the Hantei’s expression was
unreadable.
His mind emptied. The speech he’d prepared, recited over and over in his bedroom, was
gone. He was back at the ancestral shrine—his gempuku presentation—surrounded by the court and
resplendent in emerald and gold. His father had looked at him the same way then. Those weathered
eyes. A mouth that neither smiled nor frowned.
“Go on,” said his father.
“I’ve... embarrassed you this year,” he continued. His words were clumsy tar pouring from
his mouth. “The... incident... at my gempuku...”
They were midway through the spring ceremony when he detected the servants’ whispers,
seen the two from across the shrine, heard the muted chuckles that followed. They had all heard,
hadn’t they? He remembered the peasants’ faces when he shouted, how they cowered at his anger.
And the echoing snaps of opening fans, hiding reactions. His father’s face, neither smiling
nor frowning, as everyone looked away.
Sotorii’s cheeks burned. He was a flooded well, his vision blurring as water bubbled up into
his eyes. Was he just supposed to let them mock him? At his own gempuku? And now he was crying
like a child. This is what they all wanted, wasn’t it?
“But also, the... incident... with the Scorpion Champion’s son.” He grimaced. “And others.
It has reflected poorly on the family...”
The back of his throat was sore, but he let his words come unrehearsed. “I know you are
ashamed of me, father. I don’t want you to be ashamed of me. How can I earn your forgiveness and
return to your good graces?”
The Hantei regarded his son for a long time. “I have never heard you talk like that before.”
He gestured to his side. “Come here.”
Was that forgiveness? Sotorii scrambled beside him, holding his breath as his father turned
his gaze back to the enshrined sword.
“You are my son,” he said. “Nothing will ever change that.”
Sotorii settled in his seat with a relieved exhale. Already, the well was drying.
The squeaks in the hall signaled passing guards beyond the screen of the round window. The
crickets keened in the tiered courtyard below. All was right here. He didn’t need anyone else. Just
his father.

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 And Kunshu. Sotorii regarded the resplendent ancestral sword of his family, the carved
feathers of the wooden sheath seemed soft, almost real. There were times when Sotorii could not
hear his own voice in his head, when the thoughts came too fast and out of order. But whenever he
looked upon the sword, his heart slowed and the thoughts were clear and separated, like a prism for
his mind.
“You are looking at Kunshu,” his father observed.
“It’s the greatest sword in the Empire,” he breathed.
“Perhaps so,” the Hantei said. “But have you ever looked at the sword beside it?” His ancient
eyes twinkled faintly. “It is even greater than Kunshu, don’t you think?”
The unadorned short blade sat in an unpolished sheath, as though it had bored even its
blacksmith into leaving it unfinished. Shori, the ancestral sword of the Lion.
“That sword,” Jodan continued, “is the deadliest in the Empire. It is far greater than Kunshu,
not because of its forging, but because of the promise that Akodo made when he presented it to the
first Emperor. For you see, when it is returned to the Lion Clan Champion, it carries the Emperor’s
explicit approval to...”
Shori, better than Kunshu? Ridiculous. Shori wasn’t even Akodo’s actual sword. His actual
sword was broken and discarded. Shori had never even been drawn. And, if the legends were true,
it wasn’t even awakened, which meant it was no different than any sword found in a sheath of the
lowest-ranking soldiers!
But Kunshu? Kunshu was the Emperor’s sword! Forged by a Clan Thunder! Sculpted under
the guidance of a powerful spirit! Awake and aware, containing a hidden power! Power was always
better, and—
“Sotorii!” His father’s voice shattered through his thoughts. “Did you hear what I just said?”
His heart missed a beat. “You...um...”
The Emperor closed his eyes and deflated. “Never mind,” he mumbled, his mouth neither
smiling nor frowning.
Sotorii lowered his gaze. Again, he disappointed his father. As he had so many times of late.
He would never live up to his father’s expectations, nor that of the Hantei name.
But he wanted to! He was trying! Wasn’t that why he tried to lead the court, to correct them,
to set an example? Wasn’t that why he’d swallowed his fears and challenged the Ruby Champion
herself? Why he’d stood up to his bully of a brother? He had to make his father proud! Somehow!

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 A long sigh escaped the Hantei’s lips. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, Sotorii. Not so soon.
But all things considered, perhaps you’d best hear this from me.”
There was something about his tone, and the way he avoided looking at his son, that made
Sotorii’s extremities go cold.
“I am abdicating.”
He’d spoken so abruptly, Sotorii had to repeat the word to himself. Abdicating? He
was...leaving? Retiring?
“I have made up my mind,” he continued. “Tomorrow, I will shave my head, join the
Brotherhood, and contemplate the lessons of my life.”
A dozen thoughts fought for Sotorii’s attention, clattering around his skull. What did this
mean? Had this been done before? Why was he saying it like this, with that tone, and without looking
at him? Father please, just look at me for a moment!
“But father, what would happen to...”
“The throne?” The Emperor cast him a sad look. “I had meant to leave it for you, Sotorii.
But you are not ready. It would destroy you.”
His blood turned thick. “Father, I am ready!”
“You know better than that.” The Hantei folded his arms. “That is why I have decided that
you are coming with me.”
Sotorii blinked. Coming with him?
“We leave tomorrow for the Monastery Among the Winds.” He paused. “It will not be easy,
Sotorii. You will not have servants or comforts. But the hardship will make you stronger. In a few
years, it will forge you into a leader.”
That...didn’t sound so bad, in truth. An adventure with his father. He’d traveled before, seen
many courts, seen the lands of the other clans. But this was different, wasn’t it? A new feeling, one
of purpose, made him feel lighter. “I won’t fail you.”
“It is not for me,” the Hantei replied. “It is for your brother.”
Daisetsu?
The Emperor rose with difficulty. “Daisetsu needs you, Sotorii. He will need advisors he can
trust. The entire Empire will be looking to him...”
There was a knot in Sotorii’s throat, twisting, growing with a possibility—a nightmare—
that had just occurred to him. “Father,” he whispered, “what have you done?”

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 “It’s already decided,” the Hantei said. “The Emerald Champion wrote the edict today. What
did you think I meant when I said you are not ready, Sotorii?”
His heart stopped. You’re giving the throne to...?
His breath quickened, angry fire spreading through his arms, bleaching his vision.
Daisetsu.
His father was speaking. Something about family. Something about courage. He couldn’t
hear. Not clearly.
But you can’t.
“...more to being a leader than just...”
It’s not fair.
“...but he will look to you for...”
I was first.
“...he needs you more than...”
Father, you...
He rose. He grasped Kunshu by the handle. Pulled it free.
You are the one unfit to rule!

Sotorii heard only his own gasps. How had he gotten here, at the center of the room? Kunshu,
unsheathed in his hands, was dripping on the tatami. There was red spattered everywhere: across
the floor, across the velvet cushions and the broken table, mere inches from the Lion Clan sword.
Coating Kunshu’s blade. And his father, lying face down among the destruction.
No.
No!
The sword dropped from his limp fingers, clattering upon the mats. He fell to his father’s
side, heart racing. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat. Just wetness.
His hands were so bloody.
You killed him.
Breathe. It can be fixed, undone—he can be healed. It is not as bad as it looks. It cannot
possibly be. Wasn’t this chamber warded by the Seppun? Wouldn’t they know if he died?
Sotorii gripped his knees. There wasn’t enough air.

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 No. His father was dead, and he’d killed him. Now they would be coming. He should run.
Run now! Why aren’t you running?
Warm tears streaked down his grimacing face. He hadn’t meant it. Couldn’t he take it back?
Someone else did it. Yes. A servant! Not me. Not—
The chamber door slid open.
A gasp. Bayushi Kachiko froze mid-step in the doorway. Beside her, the demon mask of
Bayushi Aramoro couldn’t conceal his shock. Kachiko’s entourage of servants shrunk back in
collective horror. One of them screamed.
I’m finished.
What was the point of resisting now? Sotorii slid into a defeated pile. As the servant
screamed again, he surrendered to an odd and sudden calm. He deserved whatever came next.
The scream broke with a loud smack. The girl reeled from Kachiko, clutching her cheek.
“Aiko, please,” said Kachiko, “you’re making a scene.”
She turned to Aramoro. “Close the door and secure the hallway. Allow none save the
servants to pass. And when they have passed, make note of their names.”
The door closed behind him.
Sotorii looked over his knees as Kachiko addressed her servants. “Tell no one what you have
seen here.” She worked a bauble free from her hair and pushed it into the hands of an owl-eyed
servant girl. “Take this to the Scorpion Embassy. Tell the guard it is for Nightingale.”
The others snuck glances at him. He pictured them whispering. Chuckling.
He buried his face. He felt as if the roof had collapsed upon him, and worse, he’d been the
one to pull the beam.
Soft footsteps came to rest nearby. He felt Kachiko’s presence, smelled her floral perfume.
“My prince?” Her voice was gentle, like a soft flute. She lowered her face to his, her deep
brown eyes like a doe’s. “What happened?”
“I killed him,” he confessed. “I-I... lost my temper...”
“Why?”
There was no judgement or surprise in her tone, just idle curiosity. He almost laughed.
“He was going to abdicate. He was going to name Daisetsu his heir.”
She sat back and looked to the paper screen shielding the window. Sotorii’s eyes came to
rest again on his father’s body. Those gnarled and spotted hands had taught him to hold a brush.

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That face, buried in the floor, had beheld him at Shichi-Go-San. Sotorii’s chest ached. He rocked
back and forth. He only wanted his father to look at him again.
“Does anyone else know?”
About his father? No, she meant Daisetsu. “T-Toturi. He wrote the edict. Father said so.”
That’s right. Akodo Toturi had done this. “He must have talked father into it,” he whispered,
the heat returning. “Did you hear how he spoke to me? He and Daisetsu must have planned this
together!”
She touched his hand. Kachiko’s dark eyes twinkled beneath a brow pinched in concern. She
leaned close. There was nowhere he could look without seeing her shoulders, her neck, her rivers of
velvet hair. His face grew hot. She was like a blanket slowly enveloping him. Warm. Safe.
“It was no one’s fault,” she said. “Do not worry. I will help you with this burden.” She rose
like smoke. “I am sorry that you discovered him like this.”
Discovered him? What was she talking about? She smiled, and there was something wrong
with it, as though she were looking right through him.
He licked his dry lips. “Am I...? What are you going to...?”
Two walls slid aside, revealing passages frequented only by servants. A dozen people in
servant’s garb poured into the room.
The chamber doors parted. More flooded in. Noiseless. Swift. They pulled the tatami off the
floor. They swept the broken table. They removed his father’s robe. They measured him with a silk
ribbon. They wiped the blood from Kunshu and fed it to its sheathe. Everything was stepping
backwards. Reversing.
Kachiko spoke, filling his head, replacing his thoughts.
“I know this is hard for you, my prince. You adored your father. We all did. But this was
inevitable. He was getting older. He knew the end was coming. He is with your ancestors, and now
you must be strong. You must endure and carry on.”
As the sword was replaced upon the stand, she cast him a reassuring smile. “After all, soon
you will be Emperor.”

Hour of the Rat

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Kachiko closed her fan with a flick of her wrist. The pin connecting the spokes was wearing out,
but she unfurled it again anyway. Her favorite fan, with thin silk depicting two courtly women
playing cat’s cradle.
She closed it again. Opened it again. It helped her think.
Beyond the Hantei’s pale body, servants—or men dressed that way—lifted a plank out of
the floor, carrying it noiselessly into the servant-hall. The replacement was lowered into place and
gently tapped down with a felt-covered mallet.
Cat’s cradle was one of her favorite games. She once spent an afternoon teaching Doji
Hotaru to play, the Crane girl’s eyes glimmering as she wove the first string figure, pulling the yarn
tight and transferring it, flawlessly, to the other girl’s fingers. She remembered the delight on
Hotaru’s face when she pulled the string, changing the geometric pattern to another perfectly
symmetrical figure. The object, she explained, was to avoid making a figure that couldn’t be
transformed again. Dancing Dragon could become Beads of Heaven or Winking Toad, but Winking
Toad was a dead end, and not everyone knew how to make Beads of Heaven.
And of course, the game was over if you dropped the threads. But only beginners did that.
Hotaru had seemed to understand, but chose her figures on a whim. Kachiko always mapped
out every move, building contingencies for choices, suggesting with her eyes.
Kachiko swept the room again. Kunshu, on the stand. The ancestral sword of the Lion,
somehow untouched. The table, replaced. The Emperor’s robes, replaced. The floor, in-progress.
The prince, in his room memorizing what she’d told him to say.
So what was she missing?
Aramoro entered on urgent feet. “Miya Satoshi is asking for the Emperor,” he said with a
calm and clarity quite unlike him. “He will not be dissuaded.”
Kachiko nodded, tucking the fan away. The question still pricked the back of her mind. The
entire game was ultimately a matter of pulling the right string, but you could only pull a thread you
knew was there. There was always another move if you planned it correctly. Always a string to pull.
The lord of the Miya family wore his impatience openly as he stormed in. “What is going
on? It is well past—”
His eyes darted to the body, his color draining. He stared as Kachiko waited. “How long?”
came his defeated voice.

450
 “An hour, perhaps,” she replied, adopting a tone of barely concealed sorrow. “I’m afraid it
was Prince Sotorii who discovered him.”
He nodded absently. “That explains the young prince’s distress.”
She gestured to where the “servants” worked. “I discovered them both when I would have
delivered my nightly report. We have already sent for the Seppun to consecrate the room, but I saw
fit to begin preparations.”
“Commendable.” He knelt beside the body. “Pass on in peace, O Son of Heaven.”
Aramoro drew an ivory handle from the depths of his sleeve. An inch of sharpened steel
glinted in the dim light. He looked from Satoshi to Kachiko and raised an eyebrow.
Casually, she tucked a stray hair behind her ear. No.
Aramoro sheathed the dagger.
“It is so sudden,” Satoshi murmured. “We thought he had more time.”
A pause. A sucked breath. Then, oh so slightly, Satoshi leaned in.
He knows.
To his credit, he gave very little away as stood up. Had she been younger and less
experienced, had she not spent hours studying his expressions, she might have believed that he was
still in the dark. His frown could have been mistaken for grief, and not determination.
Aramoro stepped, oh so slowly, into the doorway.
Kachiko adorned her softest smile. “Something troubles you, Miya-sama?”
“Only how bold the Emperor’s pets have grown.”
How like the Miya daimyō. No subtlety. So he thought the Scorpion killed the Emperor, did
he?
His eyes flicked to Aramoro in the door. “Do as you like, Lady of Scorpions, but the truth
will come out, even if I never leave this room.”
Sometimes, the right string to pull was obvious.
“My lord, do not let us keep you.” She gestured to the doorway.
Aramoro tensed. She knew he was calculating how swiftly he could cross with his knife. But
he took her cue, stepping aside.
Satoshi thundered past.
“It is shame about Sotorii, however.”
He stopped, spinning. “Now you dare threaten the prince?”

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 “No, Miya-sama. You do. He is the one who killed his father.”
Never before had she seen a daimyō’s façade of self-control collapse so completely, the
horror washing over carefully crafted features, like the shattering of porcelain. She watched him
fight himself. “The prince’s behavior as of late... Yes. You’re telling the truth. That’s why the wards
didn’t alarm the Hidden Guard...”
Now that was interesting. Kachiko had been informed of the Hidden Guard when she became
Imperial Advisor. But she had not known about the wards. Was that what she was overlooking?
“Weren’t you going, Miya-sama?” she remarked.
Satoshi blinked.
“Go on,” she continued. “Tell the court what happened, that the prince killed his father.” She
let the weight of her words fully sink in. “Cast that shadow over the next Emperor and forever stain
the Hantei name. Let the shame of the son destroy the memory of his father. Cast down a thousand
years of reputation and sunder the Hantei, eroding Imperial clout, now, when tensions between the
clans are at their highest! At least you will be remembered for your honesty.” Kachiko crossed her
arms. “The Scorpion know our loyalties. Do you?”
Defiant Dog into Cowing Rat. Pull the string.
Satoshi’s horror faded into realization, calculation. “You are right,” he finally uttered. “The
honor of the Hantei must be preserved.” He looked sorrowfully at the dead Emperor. “We can tell
no one.
“Even so,” he continued, “the Seppun daimyō should be here now. As the one overseeing
his body, and the funeral vigil...”
“Better he should be summoned by you personally,” Kachiko said, “so that you may properly
convey the importance of maintaining the Emperor’s honor.” She met his eyes. “And that of his
son.”
Satoshi left.
Aramoro returned to Kachiko’s side. “He will tell no one. After all, the truth would shame
the Imperial families as well, since they could not protect him.”
“Yes. He’s ours now.” She paused. “There is still one loose end I need you to handle,
Aramoro.”
His eyes smiled above his mask. “Toturi.” The only one who knew the Emperor’s final edict.
“Do it tonight.”

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 He was gone. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d seemed so happy to take a life.
Toturi would have been a useful pawn. But what is the purpose of pawns, if not to sacrifice?
“My lady.”
An unremarkable, middle-aged man bowed respectfully before her. He was the one who had
replied to her summons; she would have mistaken him for just another servant, had he not introduced
himself as “Bayushi No-name,” and had he not dared to meet her eyes upon entering.
“The varnish for the replacement planks will dry within the hour, and then we will lay the
tatami.” He gestured to a thin woman sprinkling something from a bag. “We are dusting now.”
So that replaced fixtures would not look new. He knew his job well.
“As for the body, I repaired what I could. Applied make-up. The wound should not bleed
through his garments, although, if the body is undressed, the damage will be apparent.”
So only the undertaker would notice. This could work. “The servants,” she said, the thought
suddenly arising. “What of them?”
“Their silence has been assured.”
Another misfortune. “I rather liked Aiko,” she remarked. “She was bright, for a peasant girl.”
“Would you like her ashes?” No-name offered. “I can make arrangements.”
She nodded.
“There is one more thing. As I was stuffing and sewing the wound, I discovered this on His
Excellency’s body.” He produced a bound hand-scroll and offered it.
It was heavy in her hand, the paper thick and textured. An official document? “What does it
say?” she asked.
“I thought it impertinent to read, my lady. I would not have troubled you with it, but I have
found that in this line of work, such discoveries should be swiftly surrendered.” He lowered his
head. “Will there be anything else?”
“No,” she said, favoring him with a smile. “You have done well here, No-name. You honor
your dōjō.”
“My thanks.” He pulled a set of dirty robes from his satchel. They were from one of the
servants. He donned them quickly, expertly. “Now, I leave the city, my lady. Nightingale will aid
you, should you require more.” Disguise complete, he bowed low. “It has long been my aspiration
to serve your esteemed family, Lady of Secrets. This was an honor.” With that, he went to the
window.

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 “Where will you go?” Kachiko asked.
“I cannot say. A Bayushi died tonight in the pleasure quarter. Too much drink.”
“How will I find you, if I need your services again?”
“You won’t. Goodbye.”
The night swallowed him whole.
And she was alone.
Kachiko leaned against the wall and exhaled slowly. She felt as though she’d been running
for hours. But it wasn’t over yet, was it? The next string figure would pass into her hands soon
enough. The new Emerald Championship would be delayed until Sotorii took the throne, an
Emperor indebted to the Scorpion. She would suggest that he simply appoint a new Emerald
Champion, of course. He would even believe it was his own idea.
It was rare that one’s duty and one’s aspirations overlapped so perfectly. As her oaths
demanded, she had protected the Hantei name. What’s more, she’d corrected his mistake. Until
tonight, she had only ever regarded her nightly report to the Emperor as a chore of her station, more
often awakening the elderly ruler from accidental slumber than informing him of something
requiring his attention. But now, she thanked Bayushi’s spirit that this tedious chore had been hers.
Had someone else been entrusted with it—had someone else stumbled into the room just then...
The scroll. She worked the silk wrap loose with her thumb. The mulberry paper uncurled, as
if presenting itself. She lifted it to the light.
Broad strokes. Tear-shaped dots. It was unmistakably Toturi’s writing.
An edict from His August Imperial Majesty, Hantei XXXVIII...
His final edict! It must have been dictated to Toturi by the late Hantei himself. It was
precisely as Sotorii had said. The late Hantei had named Daisetsu his heir. Yet, there was more.
Quickly, her eyes drank the words, sprinting westward across the page.
...And as Daisetsu is not yet of age, he will ascend as Emperor under the guidance of a
regent, the esteemed Champion of the Scorpion Clan.
Bayushi Shoju.
Shoju. Her husband. Imperial Regent? Instead of the Chancellor, Kakita Yoshi? Why had
he...
Shoju knew.
A string figure, loose around her fingers, slipped.

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 Shoju knew Daisetsu was going to be named as the Imperial successor. Of course he did!
That was why the Emperor had named him regent. They must have arranged it together. They were
childhood friends, weren’t they?
An image played out in her mind: the Imperial Court wrapped in the white cloth of mourning.
The Miya daimyō reading an edict confirming Sotorii as heir. Shoju would know the edict was fake.
He would know she was behind it. There was no sense hiding anything from the Master of Secrets.
Would he go along with it?
He had to, didn’t he? To expose it would shame the Scorpion, shame his family, undo all
they had accomplished! And it would shame her, his own wife, the Imperial Advisor, protector of
the Hantei’s reputation, the only one who...
But they would already think the Scorpion killed the Emperor, wouldn’t they?
Racing, she followed the thread, each knot and tangle. If Shoju was regent, then all this
would look very convenient. The disappearance of the Emerald Champion. The sudden loss of the
Emperor. All to put Shoju on the throne. That’s how it would look. Satoshi had concluded as such
with less. And the truth could never be revealed, lest it shame the Hantei name. No, he couldn’t be
regent. It would spoil everything.
No. You have spoiled everything.
You dropped the threads.
Kachiko sat slowly on a corner cushion, taking slow breaths to calm her rapid pulse.
Whatever her husband’s plans, she had almost certainly ruined them.
But, she wasn’t to blame. No one could have foreseen Sotorii’s patricide. No one even knew
the late Emperor had chosen a different heir, except for Toturi and Shoju. And now the dice were
cast. The bet could not be changed. If only Shoju had told her, she could have acted differently! She
could have still turned the events to favor the Scorpion!
So why didn’t he?
Why didn’t he tell his own wife that he was positioned to be Imperial Regent? For that
matter, why not mention that Daisetsu would be named heir? Why was he keeping these things from
her? Didn’t he trust her? What had she done to lose his confidence?
She opened her fan. Closed it.

455
 When had she drawn the fan again? The dim light passed through the Asahina-made silk and
danced on polished spokes carved by Kakita artisans. If she held it close, she could smell cherry and
plum, see a moonlit smile touch dancing gray eyes.
It had not always been Kachiko’s fan, but it had always been her favorite.
Shoju knew about Hotaru. It was not as though she hid that from him. They had an
agreement. He understood.
But did he think she would tell the Crane Champion his secrets?
Her heart held still. Did he think she had surrendered some already?
If so, why was she still alive?
She would have to tell him. Tonight. Now. Shoju needed to know what had transpired here.
What she had set into motion.
She scooped up the edict as two men entered, carrying a square of straw tatami between
them. The final piece would be set into place. There was no turning back now. She had committed
the Scorpion to this course. It would displease him, but Shoju would see that she had no choice. He
would understand.
She would have to make him.

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Kakita Asami poured tea into her visitor’s cup and then into her own. Bayushi Iwane lifted his cup
and inhaled, then gave Asami an inquiring look. “Pearl Dew of the Fourth Bridge? Where ever did
you find this?”
“I brought some tea with me when I was sent here, having been... apprised of Lord Seishin’s
tastes in such things.” Asami raised her own cup and smiled slightly at Iwane. “This is the last of
my supply, and I wished to drink it with someone who would appreciate it.”
“That would leave our noble host out of consideration.” It was a characteristically blunt
statement by the Scorpion courtier, and Asami was not surprised. Everyone in the castle knew that
Lord Seishin treated his habit of drinking cheap tea as evidence of a virtuous character. Asami didn’t
understand it at all—Matsu Seishin was in no way a stupid man—but it had made her private stock
of fine leaf a useful resource. She had spent the summer inviting courtiers from the other clans to
her rooms to drink tea and chat about the latest pillow books to be published, the best ways to make
ink for painting, and speculations on how this year’s Imperial Winter Court would affect obi styles.
By now, any Lion samurai who was, accidentally of course, listening in on her conversations would
have definite opinions on how important they were.
“His tastes do run to the minimal in matters of art,” she said.
“This is an area in which I differ,” Iwane said. He casually waved a hand toward the flower
arrangement in the wall niche. “It is still possible to have beauty without ostentation.”
“I am gratified you think well of my work,” Asami said. “I have heard that your son has
shown great talent in ikebana.”

457
 Iwane’s mask was a simple drape of thin red silk across his lower face, and it did little to
hide the courtier’s grimace. “Too much talent, I fear. My wife has been all over the Scorpion lands
trying to find a sensei for him, to make him push his skills, but they all look at his untutored work
and sing his praises. He will never find greatness until he is challenged.”
“Perhaps you should send him to the Kakita Academy for training.”
“He would benefit from it,” Iwane said. “But to be granted admission is difficult even for a
Crane student. For someone from another clan it is rare indeed.”
“That is true,” Asami said, “but a courtier of your standing should have no trouble making
the contacts necessary to advance such a student.”
Iwane shrugged slightly. “But a courtier of my standing must also consider the needs of the
clan. If I had such a contact, should I use it to advance my son, or to benefit my lord?”
“Speaking as a Crane,” Asami said, “I think that adding a talented ikebana artist to his court
would benefit a lord. Though there are sometimes contingencies to consider.”
Iwane chuckled. “You are a true child of Doji-no-Kami,” he said. “Speaking of flowers, I
have been rereading Kakita Ryoku’s Winter. What do you think of her opinions on gardens?”

“One perfect strike is all that is needed,” Kakita Kaezin murmured.

Asami took comfort in her bodyguard’s words of encouragement. Her plan was sound,
everything was in place, and now all she needed to do was make the final move. The doors to the
great hall were opened by the Lion guards attending it, and Asami strode though with a confident
gait and a relaxed expression on her face.
Conversations buzzed up and then died into silence as she made her way to Lord Seishin’s
dais, and Asami didn’t have to guess why. She was attired in full formal dress, with four under-
kimono, two kimono, and an obi tied in a severely old-fashioned style. Everyone in the room would
understand that something was about to happen, and as she knelt to give her greetings to the Lion
lord, she knew she had the undivided attention of the room.
“Lord Seishin,” she said when the formalities were over, “great is my gratitude for the
hospitality you have shown me, but time flows on and I must set a date for my departure from this
house.”
Seishin blinked at this and quickly glanced over to his right. Asami suppressed her impulse
to smile. Ikoma Eiji had been dispatched the previous week to settle a small dispute with Seishin’s

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Ikoma neighbor to the west, leaving the lord bereft of his most experienced courtier. Seishin frowned
at the empty spot Eiji normally occupied and then turned his attention back to Asami. “I am confused
by your words,” he said. “Do you no longer serve the interests of your clan?”
“My lord’s reputation for humor remains intact,” Asami said, turning aside the insult. “It
was my hope to negotiate an understanding between our clans regarding the Osari Plains and Toshi
Ranbo before the matter became noisy enough to disturb the Son of Heaven. But now that the
Emperor has placed Toshi Ranbo under Imperial authority, and Lion and rōnin forces are sweeping
through the plains, I am no longer needed here.”
A courtier wearing the drab blue of the Crab Clan snapped his fan shut. “It is perfectly
reasonable for Kakita-san to wish to leave—no one likes to be reminded of their failures.”
“The honorable do not go where they like, but to where their lord bids them,” Seishin said.
“I do not think, Asami-san, that your work here is finished.”
“Forgive me, my lord, but now I am confused.” Bayushi Iwane stepped forward and bowed
slightly. “Kakita-sama is intelligent and well-spoken, but she lacks the standing to speak for an
Emerald Magistrate such as Bayushi Yojiro. What more work can she do here?”
For a moment, Seishin studied the Scorpion courtier, and then he looked around the room.
Asami kept her breathing even and a bland, pleasant expression fixed on her face. Now, she was
sure, Seishin was noticing that every non-Lion courtier living under his roof was in this room,
looking at him. From the beginning, the Lion Clan had claimed that she was here as a diplomat, not
a hostage. Now Seishin had the choice between admitting that she was being held as a hostage—
illegally, for the Crane and Lion were not officially at war—or letting her go. “The honorable go
where their lord bids them,” Matsu Seishin said. “You may depart whenever you feel it is best.”

Doji Kuzunobu inhaled deeply, absorbing both the scent of the lush forest around him and the thin,
bitter knowledge that this was no longer his home. A real Crane lord would, he was sure, be able to
dash off a quick poem to capture the conflict he was now feeling—but, a real Crane lord wouldn’t
need to.
“Such a beautiful garden,” Kakita Asami said. “I have never seen anything like it.”
Kuzunobu glanced down at the courtier walking beside him. Asami’s success in freeing
herself and her bodyguard from the Lion had raised her reputation in the courts a great deal, and
Hotaru had sent the young courtier with him on this mission. “A Crane will take a piece of cultivated

459
ground and put great effort into making it resemble a patch of wilderness. A Fox will find a patch
of wilderness and tidy it up enough that they can find a place to sit.” Asami laughed, gracefully
raising her fan to cover her mouth as she did so.
They walked on a little farther before Kuzunobu stopped and indicated a small clearing off
of the path. “And here we can sit.” There was a handful of tree stumps scattered around, each hewed
off at a convenient height for sitting. Kuzunobu settled down on one, and Asami chose another a
polite distance away. Kakita Kaezin, who had been silently following them, took up his position a
few paces behind Kuzunobu. The leaves of the trees above them rustled gently amidst the afternoon
breeze. “We will need to start back to the palace before full dark falls, but we can talk in privacy
here for a bit. What have you discovered today?” Kuzunobu asked.
“More questions than answers,” Asami said. While Kuzunobu had spent the day engaged in
public, highly scripted activities appropriate for the spouse of a major clan champion visiting a
minor clan champion, she had been gossiping with the courtiers of her station. “They are worried
about all the appropriate things, of course, but there seems to be a specific worry about a Lion
samurai who is visiting the palace here. And yet no one will tell me what the worry is.”
“They are worried about one Lion?” Kuzunobu asked. He had grown up in the Fox, for
whom the Lion Clan was a long-standing threat, and he had been married into the Crane, for whom
the Lion Clan was a long-standing rival. In either case, it was understood that Lion samurai were
generally only threats when they were in a group.
“It is very odd,” Asami said. “He is an older samurai named Akodo Kage. I heard there is
an honored sensei by that name in the Lion lands; I am not sure if he is the same one. I met him
today in passing, and he has a rōnin as a bodyguard.”
“He is not a rōnin,” Kakita Kaezin commented.
Kuzunobu twisted around in his seat to look at Kaezin. “You know this man?”
“I know of him; he is a Mirumoto duelist on a warrior pilgrimage. He is currently known as
Akihiro.”
“Is he skilled?”
“Among those who practice the two-sword technique, he is considered to be very good.”
Kaezin shrugged, rendering a Kenshinzen’s silent judgement on the technique in question. “That he
seeks to improve himself speaks well of him. And attaching himself to a sensei is very clever in

460
these unsettled times—he will be able to travel throughout the Lion provinces without being killed
out of hand as a spy or forced to serve in their armies.”
Asami raised her fan to tap it gently on her nose. “That explains that,” she said thoughtfully,
“but it—” She shrieked and flung the fan away as a small bat dived down and attached itself to it.
For a brief moment, the small flat face stared up at her from the ground, its beady eyes locked with
hers as its mouth slowly opened and tiny white fangs glittered within. Then, the fluttering of dark
leathery wings filled the clearing as a cloud of similar creatures descended upon the trio.
“Nodeppō!” Kuzunobu yelled, springing to his feet and shielding his face from the blood-
sucking bats of the yōkai. “Begone, spirit! You have no business here.” From the corner of his
vision, he could see Asami had sensibly rolled herself into a ball at the foot of the stump and was
using the wide sleeves of her kimono to shield her head. He turned his attention to the trees around
him and found what he sought on a nearby branch: a creature resembling an overly large flying
squirrel that was blowing bats out of its mouth. Before he could say anything else, the creature
launched itself from its perch and swooped down toward his face.
And then Kaezin was standing before him, his katana sweeping out in a sharp-edged curve.
The two halves of the creature hit the ground with meaty thuds as the bats melted away into wisps
of smoke. Kuzunobu looked at the remains in horror as Kaezin turned toward him, sword still in
hand. “Are you all right, my lord?”
“You killed it,” Kuzunobu said.
His bodyguard tilted his head slightly, as if hearing something unexpected in Kuzunobu’s
tone. “It was threatening you,” he said.
“The nodeppō is a forest spirit,” Kuzunobu said. “Killing it is...” His voice trailed off. He
couldn’t think of a word that would explain to the Crane samurai what he had just done. Kaezin had
shed blood in the sacred forest without first asking leave of the spirits.
Kaezin shook the blood from his blade, sheathed it, and prostrated himself in front of
Kuzunobu in one smooth motion. “Bushidō demands I follow Lady Doji’s command to protect you,”
he said. “It also demands I accept any consequences of my actions. I will do as you command.”
Kuzunobu looked down at him, aware of the sound of alarmed voices coming down the
garden path and of the aghast expression on Asami’s face. “I will leave consequences to your Lady
to decide,” he said, putting the problem off. “I will deal with the Fox Clan.”

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“My bodyguard acted appropriately,” Kuzunobu said. “He was protecting me.”
“So now you have turned into a Great Clan samurai,“ Kitsune Gohei observed.
“That was your order to me, was it not, Gohei-sama?”
The two men were sitting in Gohei’s private study. The last time he was here, Kuzunobu
remembered, was when his cousin told him of his betrothal to Doji Hotaru. Apparently Gohei also
remembered, because he shifted slightly and dropped his gaze to his desk. “Be that as it may,” Gohei
said more quietly, “he has created trouble for us with the forest-dwellers. Now I have troubles on
my borders, trouble in the forest, and trouble in my own home.”
When one had the Lion Clan for a neighbor, troubled borders were unremarkable. Kuzunobu
ignored that and focused on more interesting matters. “The Crane Clan will certainly compensate
your shugenja for whatever rituals they need to perform to mollify the forest-dwellers,” he said.
“And as for the rest—you arranged for my marriage in hopes of my swaying the Crane to the Fox
Clan’s advantage. I cannot help if I don’t know what is needed.”
Gohei picked up the ink stone from an adjacent writing table and played with it. When he
set it down, he looked back up at Kuzunobu. “You have heard of my Lion visitor.”
“The old sensei? Akodo Kage?”
“Him. He says he is visiting because he had heard of the beauty of the forest in this season.
It’s merely an unfortunate accident that he keeps bringing up the idea that the Fox Clan should be
dissolved, and our people reunited with the Unicorn Clan.”
“Swift-riding Shinjo!” Kuzunobu said. “He can’t possibly think he can revive that argument.
The members of the Emperor’s court have much more interesting things to argue about these days.”
“He doesn’t really need to believe it,” Gohei said. “He just needs to sound as if he believes
it long enough to entice someone in my court do something stupid. And then the Lion will have
something they can claim as a pretext for attacking us.”
“Are you sure that is his game? The Lion are quite busy not having a war with the Crane.
They have no need to start a second... ah.” The Crane Clan had very few fortifications on their
border with the Fox, and this summer, Hotaru had transferred most of the samurai who guarded
them to the north.
“One can’t fault the Akodo for being frugal,” Gohei said. “If he fails, they have lost nothing
but a few weeks of a sensei’s time. He didn’t even bring a Lion samurai as a bodyguard!”
“No, he brought a skilled duelist.”

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 “I have many skilled duelists here.”
“This one is good enough that the Kakita knows who he is.”
“Is that so?” Gohei asked. “That would explain why no one had tried to challenge him yet.”
“Indeed.” Kuzunobu smiled widely. “Yet.”

A guest as prestigious as the spouse of the Crane Clan Champion was highly unusual in the Fox
lands, and thus called for a grand banquet in honor of the occasion. Kuzunobu drank his sake and
pretended to listen to his great-aunt’s lengthy account of her most recent efforts at matchmaking.
She could be relied upon to talk for as long as needed, but she was a soft-voiced woman who in no
way hampered his ability to listen in on the conversations around him. Kakita Kaezin, as always,
was standing silently behind him.
A short distance away, Akodo Kage had been placed close to Kuzunobu’s seat as a sign of
respect, but not too close given their clans’ current strife. Akihiro was standing behind him; another
gesture of prestige offered to a visiting sensei of the Lion Clan. Seated on the far side of Kage was
Itsuki, one of Kuzunobu’s younger cousins. Under normal circumstances, someone like Itsuki
wouldn’t be allowed in the same room with someone like Kage, which made him perfect for tonight.
“How can you sit in Lord Gohei’s house and say such a thing!” Itsuki had held his temper
much longer than Kuzunobu expected, but now he was red-faced and on the verge of jumping to his
feet.
“I have said nothing to bring dishonor to this house,” Kage said. “I am only pointing out
that, as a family of the Unicorn Clan, you would have a higher status than as members of a minor
clan.”
Kuzunobu cut in before Itsaki could reply, raising his voice so everyone in the room could
hear him. “You surprise me, Akodo-san. One does not usually hear a Lion samurai criticizing the
Emperor.”
Everyone, including his great-aunt, stopped talking and stared at Kuzunobu.
“I am sorry, Doji-sama, but you must have misheard. There is no disrespect for the Emperor
in my words,” Kage said. Although his hair had gone to silver and the skin on his face and hands
showed the wrinkles of age, there was no mistaking the intensity of the look he turned on Kuzunobu.
“You said that the Kitsune should be returned to the Unicorn Clan, which the Emperor has
not done. It is a clear criticism of his lack of action.”

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 “My comment was speculation, based on common etiquette,” Kage said. “The Emperor can,
in his wisdom, do whatever he sees fit with the Kitsune.”
“I,” Kuzunobu said quietly, “say you were criticizing the Emperor.” He smiled at Kage, and
then pointedly turned his attention to pouring himself some more sake. One didn’t need to win a
stare-down when one had a Kenshinzen to stare for you. From the corner of his eye, he saw Akihiro,
looking like he was facing into a strong wind. If it came to steel, he would duel Kaezin, but he didn’t
look eager about it.
His cup full, Kuzunobu lifted it up and sipped from it. Kage was still staring in his direction,
but Kuzunobu was sure that the old sensei was considering Kaezin’s stance.
“I see the error of my words,” Kage said. He bowed slightly in Kuzunobu’s direction. “I
thank you, Doji-sama, for pointing out my mistake.”
“We will speak no more of it,” Kuzunobu said. “Is your cup full? Should we call for more
sake?”
“You are gracious,” Kage said, “but no. I feel I should return to my quarters and meditate
on what I have learned this evening.” He rose and excused himself from the gathering.
A lesser man would have stalked out of the room, but Kuzunobu hadn’t expected a Lion
sensei to behave like a lesser man. He signaled for more sake and began a discussion with his great-
aunt about Crane families who were looking for good spouses for their children. His new clan
needed all the allies it could get, and he would not let any opportunities go by.

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Noble Samurai of the Glorious Phoenix Clan,

As I was returning from Otosan Uchi after the beautiful wedding of Akodo Kaede, I came upon a
dry riverbed flowing down from the foothills. On our journey south, my companions and I had
stopped at that river and left a small offering, allowing the kami of the river to cleanse the weariness
from our bodies. To see it so empty was disheartening, and yet more concerning were the fish whose
bodies lay clustered at a rocky bend, abandoned by the receding current. Where the kami that dwelt
in that river has gone—and what could have caused so sudden an emptiness—has lingered in my
thoughts ever since.
The Council of Masters, in their wisdom, have dispatched the Isawa to inquire after the kami
who dwell in such places. Yet the Council is incomplete, for our Elemental Master of Earth has
traveled south to the lands of the Kuni on a personal quest of his own. As our undivided wisdom is
required to safeguard the Empire’s spirit, I have sent a clever advisor, wise beyond her years, to find
Isawa Tadaka. I have no doubt that Asako Tsuki will be up to the task, but I have additionally
instructed her to seek out Hida Kisada on the Carpenter Wall should the trail run cold.
Yet Tsuki’s departure from the Imperial Capital leaves us in need of a diplomat whose
insight can manage our requests of the Emperor’s court. With our friendship with the Unicorn
strained and with the Dragon unwilling to root out the heresy that has been burgeoning in their lands,
we are now in particular need of Imperial support.
This is why I must humbly ask that you take up Asako Tsuki’s duties at Otosan Uchi. The
Emperor’s Ancestral Sword will soon be placed in the care of one of the Great Clans, and if such a

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blessing brings with it the confidence of the Crown Prince, then I believe we would benefit to receive
it. The Emperor’s Advisor and Chancellor each have his ear, but our cause is sacred and just. Neither
the Left nor Underhand of the Emperor can claim to match our sincerity.
In the meantime, I must travel from Shiro Gisu to meet with my trusted advisor, Asako
Maezawa. The Kaito remain spread across the shrines of our lands and the Isawa busy with the
Council’s tasks, yet questions still linger in my mind. I intend to task my advisor with his own
investigation, one for which his unique talents are invaluable. Yet whether he is most needed in our
lands or in Otosan Uchi remains unclear to me. When you arrive at the Imperial Capital, report to
me on the atmosphere of the court there. Your advice on this matter may help sway my mind as to
where Maezawa-samas investigation must begin.
I will await your advice by the grace of the kami. Once your retainers are at hand to travel,
depart straight for Otosan Uchi. Your most loyal service is always noted and appreciated.

Shiba Tsukune,
The Soul of Shiba, Protector of the Council, Keeper of the Tao,
Daimyo of the Shiba, and Champion of the Phoenix Clan

Wise Servant of the Dragon,

I have long been contemplating our Champion’s vision. The wisdom of lord Togashi Yokuni is
boundless, yet when one seeks enlightenment one must often walk an untrod path. He speaks of a
rising wave that strips the plain bare, that none can hide from the Empire’s might. His vision is
shared among the daimyo of our clan and, behold, the Army of the Rising Waves descends toward
Otosan Uchi. Even now, the honorable Mirumoto Hitomi leads the warriors of the Dragon to the
Emperor on behalf of her lord and our Champion. Should the crashing wave that Yokuni-ue has
foreseen strike the capital, the Emperors safety must be preserved.
As I write this letter, the first leaf of autumn falls. While it has unfortunately been some time
since I was free to visit the mountains of our home, I am blessed by the peace and beauty of the

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palace gardens. I have watched the roses this year bloom with a dark hue, more red than pink. They
will make a striking image, I think, when their petals flutter to the pond’s surface and cover it in a
shifting coat of crimson.
When a petal settles upon still water, its ripples may reach a great distance. So too have the
events of the court reached far and wide. By tradition, the Ancestral Sword of the Hantei shall be
entrusted to one of the Great Clans until the Crown Prince is of age to ascend his father’s seat.
Despite the best efforts of the esteemed Imperial Chancellor, the Emperor’s family retains its close
ties to the children of Bayushi. It will take much skill to direct the Son of Heaven’s trust away from
his close friend and his Advisor, and I am certain the Crane and the Phoenix will seek to do so. I
have called upon additional diplomats and investigators of my family to join me in the capital, that
they might remind the other clans of our noble heritage. But I wonder if the prestige of this duty is
truly a blessing. Though the cricket is small, its song is heard throughout the land. So too, does the
word of an advisor carry far and wide. The Ruby Champion and Lady Kachiko have found that their
duties sometimes intersect, and I do not believe Shoju-sama has reason to distrust such sage insight
as our clan can offer. Perhaps allowing this honor to be bestowed upon the Scorpion, and drawing
the eyes of the Empire to the clan of secrets, would not be so dark an outcome.
While many questions remain unanswered, the wisdom of the servants of the Dragon has not
diminished. Soon, Togashi Mitsu shall be at my side to provide counsel to those who most need it.
Certainly I will be glad to have such a worldly tattooed warrior in my confidence, for the ise zumi
see ripples in the pond that I cannot. Let this letter be a summons for you to join me in the Imperial
Capital as well, that we might uncover the answers our Clan Champion requires of us.

Finding the answer is easy. It is asking the question that is hard.

Kitsuki Yaruma,
Ambassador to the Imperial Court

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Honorable Samurai,

I will not waste your time with eloquence, for the sacrifices you continue to make are vital to
preserve the future Empire. An opportunity presents itself. Changes in the Imperial Court may
provide fresh allies that would be of service in our endless conflict. I have commanded the Yasuki
daimyo to meet with Chief Magistrate Bayushi Yojiro of Toshi Ranbo. Even now, he travels north
to negotiate for a substantial provision of much-needed jade. After the success of his dealings these
past months, I believe he can succeed in this endeavor. We may yet find friends among the Scorpion
Clan after all.
The darkness that opposes us remains impenetrable. I have yet to receive any report from
the watchtower at Ishigaki Province. I have dispatched Yasuki Oguri to uncover the fate that has
befallen the garrison there. He is swift and cunning but will not undertake this task alone. Do not
hinder or delay him. The machines of war shall crumble beneath the blows of our eternal enemy
unless they operate in tandem. The Empire is not prepared for the worst.
You will go to Otosan Uchi. A frog in a well cannot know the sea, so the Crown Prince
remains ignorant of our duty. His family’s Ancestral Sword, Kunshu, is in need of a steward. I do
not expect His Excellency will grant such an honor to our clan, for he is surrounded by advisors
among the Scorpion, Crane, and Phoenix who continue to advocate for their clans’ interests.
However, the Crown Prince’s favor will be invaluable in securing future Imperial support. Do not
concern yourself with the whispers of vainglory that swirl around him. Such whispers are no
different from the lies others tell of our savagery. Fear not if Kunshu does not fall under our clan’s
care, so long as it remains out of the hands of the Crane. I have no doubt the capital will forget our
duty entirely should the Crane secure the ear of the Crown Prince.
Depart as soon as you are able. I expect your report to be timely, and your return upon the
resolution of this matter to be immediate. Our ancient foe grows stronger by the day.

Lord Hida Kisada,

Defender of the Wall

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Courteous Retainer of the Honorable Crane,

The breeze of the descending autumn carries with it a sharp sting. Its whispers speak of the Crown
Prince, observing his behavior and drawing self-serving conclusions. I do not look forward to the
coming winter, when the days shall be short, and our glorious city closed to the cold winds. After
your unparalleled service at the palace of my family, the Imperial Capital would be blessed by your
presence.
The Ancestral Sword of the Hantei shall soon be entrusted to one of the Great Clans, though
there is little reason for His Excellency to consider the Lion, Unicorn, or Crab. Their duties require
a great deal of travel as they safekeep our glorious Empire from threats within and without, and to
involve them in the intricacies of the court would only draw them away from such magnanimous
tasks. As the Emperor continues to consider our humble proposal of wedding the beautiful and
eloquent Doji Chiyoe to the Crown Prince, the caretaking of Kunshu may be bestowed upon the
Crane. No other clan would be so equipped to keep perfect such an ancient and exalted talisman.
While the artisans of the Kakita maintain its every ornament, the shugenja of the Asahina shall keep
its spirit dedicated to peace. Yet words shared in secret weigh more heavily upon the mind. With
the Imperial Advisor at His Excellency’s ear, and the close friendship of their sons, I fear the sword’s
destiny may be marred by red hands.
Let this be an invitation for you to join us in Otosan Uchi, your duties having been
exceptionally fulfilled. Your sharpened wit would be invaluable to cut through the sea of lies and
half-truths of the Emperor’s court.
While you are here, you may be honored by the company of the esteemed Doji Kuwanan,
recently returned from the fighting on the Osari Plains. With the duties his sister must undertake to
keep the Empire safe from Matsu passion, she has been unable to fully attend to the needs of the
late Emerald Champion’s legacy. Kuwanan-sama remains in the Forbidden City for as long as is
needed for him to fulfill that service to his honorable father.
In regards to the city of Toshi Ranbo, held so long by the Crane, the current Emerald
Champion’s wisdom has been invaluable. The Honest Scorpion will rule the city fairly, and the roar
of the offended Lion will fall upon unlistening ears. Daidoji Uji has withdrawn his forces from the
city to transfer governance to the Emerald Magistrates, and will soon reunite with his Champion on

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the field. Further, the new governance of the city has helped us arrange for Kakita Asami’s departure
from the court of Matsu Seishin. She travels now with Doji Kuzunobu to the court of the Fox to
discuss the challenges each of our clans face, and how we can best work together toward freedom
and security amid the turbulent waves of our time.

Kakita Yoshi,
The Voice of Honor, Esteemed Imperial Chancellor,
and Noble Daimyo of the Kakita

Ice cuts the still air

Where silent empty words echo
Petals fall away

Most Honorable Samurai of the Lion Clan,

I write to you on behalf of our Champion, Akodo-ue, whose service to the Emperor continues
to require his undivided attention. He attends to his duties as Emerald Champion with the
appropriate neutrality, having appointed the Honest Scorpion, Bayushi Yojiro, as Chief Magistrate
of Toshi Ranbo and elevating the wise and strong Kitsu Chiemi as the next commander of the
Imperial Legions. Few will now doubt the righteous strength of the Emperor’s Right Hand, though
the Lion Clan’s armies will miss Chiemi’s tactical brilliance as we stand upon the brink of war.
Despite our Champion’s diplomacy, the warmongering of the Unicorn Clan has continued
to escalate. Even as they celebrate their conquest of Hisu Mori Mura, their hordes continue to grow.
We must keep our armies mustered to oppose them. When the Unicorn ride to battle, and I have no
doubt that they will, we shall strike back with a fierce roar and strike fear into the hearts of
oathbreakers such as they. Fear not that we should be spread thin by our ongoing conflicts against
Doji Hotaru on the Osari Plains: the honorable Matsu Tsuko has gathered her forces and will soon
avenge the death of the great Akodo Arasou, striking a blow to the Crane that shall force them to
retreat from the field of battle.

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 Do not hold grievance with Champion Toturi for attending to the needs of the Empire while
our clan struggles to uphold the Emperor’s peace. He is faced with countless cunning enemies in
the Imperial Court, and even his inviolate honor is not enough to draw the Emperor’s ear away from
the Scorpions who surround His Excellency. As Toturi must fight his battles, so too must we: look
now to the command of your generals and your daimyo. We must maintain our pride and unity in
these difficult times, for even Heaven could not say when Toturi’s duties as Emerald Champion will
command less of him.
I have been informed by Seppun Michiko-sama that the Emperor shall soon draw upon
tradition and put the Ancestral Sword of the Hantei under the care of one of the clans until the Crown
Prince is ready to ascend the throne. Despite our ancestral duty to serve the Emperor as his military
Right Hand, I am certain that the whispers of those Scorpion, Crane, and Phoenix who frequent the
court have given him reason to consider their clans better suited than our own in this endeavor. If
the Son of Heaven sees fit to bestow that honor upon one of those clans, we must ensure that the
sword’s stewardship goes to our allies among the Phoenix, and not to the scheming Scorpion or
Crane. Where you can identify the clefts of their armor, whether in the court or on the field, I call
upon you as loyal servants of the Lion to strike out and disable the operations of these two rival
clans. By the strength of our honor and the courage of our samurai, the Lion Clan shall guide the
Empire towards a righteous future!

Your humble advisor,

Ikoma Ujiaki
Honorable Ambassador to the Imperial Court

471
Trusted Counselor,

The transformation of the open plains as leaves fall and the northern winds blow has always brought
me joy. Even as the land grows harsh, we come together at the fireside and recall our bonds of
fellowship, remembering that we are the children of the wind. As the Lion continue to claim
grievances against us, Utaku Kamoko leads the riders of the Higashi Kaze Company south along
the Three Sides River to keep our aggressive neighbors safely out of our lands. They know they
cannot vanquish us while we ride free, and so they attempt to lure us into village squares and walled
courtyards. Were it not for our allies the Crane, I suspect the Akodo would gladly send their full
might across the river, thinking we could not drive off their full legions. Fortunately, our friendship
holds strong, the Crane refuse to yield, and the Lion are restrained.
To safeguard the village that Ikoma Anakazu so brazenly called his own, I have appointed
Moto Juro as the steward of Hisu Mori Toride. He is a cunning tactician who will give no quarter in
a fight, yet I know that he will be far happier when his duty no longer demands of him such violence.
His passion for justice and understanding will without doubt guide the village toward a prosperous
future.
Yet I am pained by the news that the courteous Ide Tadaji sends from his station at Otosan
Uchi. Even after many months of loyal service, our beloved daughter Iuchi Shahai remains locked
away in the Forbidden City beyond the reach of our diplomats and mediators. While she has been
granted the honor of educating the greatest of the Emperors guards, no bird should be kept caged
away from the reach of her own family. I entrust to you a letter from her father, that you ride swiftly
for the Imperial Capital and find the means by which you can deliver it to her—and to her alone.
Her father wants her to know that she has not been abandoned at the capital.
While you traverse the blessed streets that line Seppun Hill, you will also likely encounter
the newest passion of the court. His Majesty’s Ancestral Sword will soon be given to the clan he
trusts most to keep it safe. While I expect that to be the Scorpion, given the confidence that the
Hantei shares with the Lord and Lady Bayushi, it would be to our benefit if it was bestowed upon
the Crane. Should the subject arise while you are there, do not restrain your praise for the sons and
daughters of Doji-no-Kami.

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 When the followers of Lady Shinjo set out into the unknown, they knew not the obstacles
they would face, yet their companionship and their courage saw them through. I know you will be
the same, for you too are of the Unicorn.

Shinjo Altansarnai,
Seeker of the Setting Sun, Khan of Khans, Mistress of the Five Winds,
Daimyo of the Shinjo, and Champion of the Unicorn Clan

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Hour of the Boar—The Gardens of the Otomo Palace

“Painted thrushes flee

Flying toward the sacred south
Fleeing the Harvest Moon’s chill.”
The Doji poet bowed at the close of her recitation before vanishing into the dark garden like a
specter. Akodo Kaede shivered slightly in the collar of her fall kimono. The first icy winds skittered
through the decorative pines. Paper lanterns swayed above the audience sitting assembled on the
veranda of the Otomo Palace in the Forbidden City. The guests awaited the rise of the Harvest Moon,
and this O-tsukimi gathering marked its occasion with a poetry reading organized by Kakita Ryoku
a few days before the Imperial City’s official harvest celebration. The late hour had not permitted
the Emperor nor his sons to attend, but Bayushi Kachiko had promised to relate the successes of the
evening to them on the morrow. Kaede watched, her eyes soft with concern. The Imperial Advisor
shared an entertained whisper with a stoic yōjimbō before raising a regal finger to signal the want
of the next poet. Kaede saw a flicker of a glance in her direction, their eyes only skimming one
another. She stiffened.
The shugenja had never really enjoyed an intimacy of acquaintance with Kachiko, having
spent most of her life away from court and retaining somewhat the honest Phoenix Clan’s distrust
of the Scorpion. But her marriage to Akodo Toturi, who had won the Emerald Championship mere
days after their wedding, had brought her within the Scorpion woman’s orbit. That brief look chilled
her.

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 Had it been regret? No. Pity? No... Compassion? And since when does the unfathomable
Kachiko show any sign of her inner thoughts?
The next poet took the stage: an Otomo courtier with a black, crested kanmuri hat and maple
leaf fan.
Why take notice in me?
The wind moaned, stirring the clouds that glowed with the promise of the moon. She shook
her head. This puzzling over motive and meaning was Toturi’s influence on her. Her dear husband
was always calculating. She smiled.
I need play no games of strategy tonight.
Kaede took a deep breath and settled back into herself to avoid the churning waters of
brooding. But they rose.
“From heaven’s wine gourd,” the poet began.
Suddenly, Kaede’s breath seemed sucked from her lungs.
“Silver light streams into the
cup of a still pond.”
An invisible force crashed over her like a wave, catching her body up and flinging her far
down beneath a crushing surge of blackness.
“The summer’s bloom has faded,
and I shall drink deep,
this draught of moon opening
paths of autumn dreams...”
Her open eyes saw nothing for what felt like an eternity until slowly, the realization dawned
that this was not real. This was a vision.
She reached out for the elements around her, steadying her soul to float back toward the
surface.
A night sky blistered before her. Fiery stars careened, climbing and sinking with the wheel
of the heavens. Yet they did not fall with the sky. They fell from it.
Plummeting, the blazing lights shuddered in their final descent, raining down like thousands
of dying fireflies, their light snuffed out as they collapsed into the darkness. She cried out, fumbling
with outstretched hands to catch them, their lifeless bodies bleeding between her fingers.

475
 One final star, brighter than the others, flickered, struggling to rise beyond the pull of the
black. The lone firefly climbed higher, higher, beyond its dying siblings, but the ocean seethed
upward to meet it. With a violent wave slashing the sky, the darkness crashed over the star,
smothering it with a deafening hiss.
Kaede covered her ears and tried to scream, but the ocean had swallowed her too. She sank
down, down, further into the darkness beside the last little firefly, and together they drifted
down...down...
“...though I stroll drunken
with stumbling steps, the pond cup
ripples in the wind,
the path of dreams stays steady.”
Kaede caught herself, blinking in the dim lantern light. The Otomo poet was bowing, the
newly risen Harvest Moon gleaming off of his glossy black cap. She slumped wearily on her zabuton
cushion, her breath ragged. A nearby Dragon courtier leaned toward her.
“Are you well?” Kitsuki Yaruma whispered.
Kaede smiled weakly, the polite attempt at tact barely sufficient. “It is the cold,” she
managed. “Thank you for your concern.”
With weak limbs, she escaped toward the dimly lit hall, nearly tripping between the other
guests as her ankles threatened to give way. The inevitable whispers arose behind her. But she didn’t
care. The vision still clung to her with steel claws. Falling stars. Dying fireflies.
Toturi. I must find Toturi!
“Kaede!” a voice boomed behind her.
Seppun Ishikawa pursued her in the dim palace corridor, a frown stiffening upon her friend’s
face. “Akodo Kaede-sama,” he corrected himself, regaining his courtly composure as he drew near.
“Forgive me. I was late to the O-tsukimi, but I saw you here. Where are you...” His question died
on his lips. “You are not ill, are you?”
“I...” she faltered. “I am fine. Thank you. But...I must find my husband.”
Ishikawa raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure he is in the Emerald Champion’s suites, just where
you left him.”
“Yes,” she stammered, her eagerness tumbling between her lips before she could stop
herself. “I must go to him. Right now.”

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 The Seppun’s eyes grew dark as her fear dawned on him. “What is wrong, Kaede?” he
whispered. “Did something happen?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened—”
The cold wave returned, overcoming her. From beneath the surface, another heaven of stars
scattered before her. But the pinpricks of light throbbed with gory red. The stars had faces. Voices.
Screams. They hurtled all around her, bursting with a thousand flames as they plunged into the dark
sea. Melting before her, smearing into a long, straight molten ribbon of steel. The blade shone, but
the tip dripped with a splash of blood that mingled with the darkness. In the barrage of falling bodies,
two stars lingered before her, piercing her soul with their shafts of brightness. She met their gaze—
her father’s eyes: cold, dead, unblinking.
Above the whirling chaos of her vision, Kaede could hear Ishikawa’s voice. Though
sounding far away, the words were clear: “What do you see?”
“Falling...stars...” she gasped, not sure if her voice echoed in her ears or merely in the vision.
The dream crumpled before her like paper consumed by flame. Ishikawa stood before her,
propping her up as she reeled from the violence of her last vision.
“I must find Toturi,” she repeated.
Her friend nodded, following her at a quick pace as she stumbled down the hallway again,
the need to run dragging at her knees. “I will escort you at once.”
Kaede bowed weakly, unable to thank Ishikawa properly for his invaluable service to her.
Her mind was fixed on Toturi. Somehow, she knew...
His light—his life—was about to be snuffed out.

Hour of the Rat—The Suites of the Emerald Champion in the Imperial Palace

Akodo Toturi knelt with stiff legs before his writing desk. A neglected writing brush lay propped
over a steel yatate whose open inkwell held cotton soaked with pine soot ink. The sheets and scrolls
full of magisterial letters, petitions, and reports strewn before him would have to wait. Another
document occupied his mind, penned that very day: the Emperor’s edict. The sacred Son of Heaven
had asked him, the lowly Akodo Toturi, to shift the Celestial Order of things, making Daisetsu—
the younger son—Emperor over his deposed elder brother Sotorii.

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 What fires this will light in all corners of Rokugan. And as the Emperor’s champion, I must
put them all out.
The cold autumn air blew outside his window, and the squeaking chirps of bats drifted in on
the wind. The moon would rise soon. He had been working too late once more. Was Kaede enjoying
the O-tsukimi, at least?
The wilt of her eyes had told him that she was disappointed he would not attend. Such
gatherings had never before piqued his interest, but tonight he had longed to go with her—perhaps
to escape the burden of his impossible task for but a few poems. But the Emperor’s will could not
wait. Toturi gathered his papers together. The bats screeched again, closer, perhaps gathering the
autumn’s final moths. The sound echoed in the wind.
Toturi’s hands stopped. He looked out the window into the darkness. Somehow, the
screeches had sounded human. Like wicked laughter.

Bayushi Aramoro crouched motionless in the shadow of a nearby tower, enveloped in the pitch-
stained black silk tied across his body and limbs. He pressed the ends of two long throwing needles
against the heels of his palms. They were blackened with fire to prevent any gleam, their tips
poisoned.
The starless sky seemed to tremble with icy air. An invisible storm had already descended
upon the Forbidden City, and his Lady Kachiko had boldly risen to meet it. She expected a flawless
execution. And he would not fail her.
We just need to slay the beast that still stands in our way.
Aramoro watched Toturi’s back from the fire-lit window. He smiled beneath his mask.
Kachiko had commanded that the Lion disappear without a trace, and just before moonrise, the three
of them would begin their hunt.
Softly, the chirp of a bat wavered on the wind. The first shinobi was in position.
Aramoro moved for the first time in an hour, extending himself into a throwing stance, ready
to strike.
The second signal sounded.
He loosed his dart, but Toturi bolted to his feet, narrowly eluding the dart’s flight as he left
the room. Damn. He drew another needle from his chest pocket, listening. Toturi’s movements
through the wooden walls compounded into multiple footfalls. He emerged into the courtyard below,

478
hand at his hilt with a sentry at each shoulder. Their Imperial Guard armor glistened in their lanterns’
flames.
“It may be nothing,” the Emerald Champion said, “but be careful.”
Across the courtyard, a shadow emerged atop the roof. With her clawed chain, the shinobi
yanked free a gold-plated decorative onigawara roof tile directly above Toturi. He snatched back
one of his men, but the oni-shaped statue smashed into the other, crushing the life from him.
Aramoro snarled, springing for the window just as Toturi and his remaining guard vanished
back into the palace.
It seems we must end this face to face, Lion.
He tumbled into Toturi’s study just as the Emerald Champion crested the stairs.
“We were expecting you,” Aramoro mocked.
Before Toturi could move, his guard slashed at his belt cords, sending the Lion’s daishō
tumbling to the floor. The guard hacked at Toturi next. The Emerald Champion snatched up his
yatate, scarcely glancing the disguised shinobi’s blow away from his neck.
In answer, Aramoro flung his two poisoned darts, again narrowly missing as Toturi seized
the Imperial Guard–clad shinobi, pulling him into the path of the needles, which stuck like small
arrows into the small of the man’s back. One caught a gap in the armor, and the man hissed in pain
as hot poison shot through his bloodstream. He slumped to the floor.
Without losing an instant, Toturi dove toward his fallen swords, but a chained claw ripped
through the window, snatching the daishō from Toturi’s reach. The shinobi slunk into the room,
whirling her weapon.
“Too slow, my lord Lion,” Aramoro crowed, drawing his own blade. He charged.
The yatate fractured against the force of Aramoro’s blow, the sword tip slicing down Toturi’s
arm. Blood and ink splattered to the floor in swollen drops, the scent of iron and ash bursting into
the air. Aramoro circled the wounded Lion.
He lunged.
In a desperate dodge, Toturi sprang toward the shinobi, seizing her heavy claw midair and
flinging its momentum into the side of Aramoro’s face. He staggered, his vision swimming with
white sparks. His knees rattled, threatening to pitch him to the floor. Growling, he blinked his vision
clear.

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 Toturi wrestled with the shinobi, her own chain bound tightly around her throat. With a final
rake at his eyes, she lay still.
Two dead. Kachiko will be furious.
Toturi stood, his eyes locked on Aramoro. From its stand on a nearby lacquered dais, he
drew the sword of the Emerald Champion in a slow, deliberate arc. Its blade flashed as the Lion
lowered into a fighting stance.
In fury, Aramoro lunged.
Toturi’s parries were limp against his blows, fatigued from his wound. He backed the Lion
against the stairs. No more room for retreat.
“I” Aramoro spat.
In a final burst of rage, Toturi roared, driving himself forward. He was not the better
swordsman, but the survival instinct spurred him into a frenzy of swirling offensive kata. The
fighters shuffled back a few steps. Aramoro hissed, his own movement growing frantic in the flurry.
He lost his rhythm.
No. He could not lose to Toturi.
Not again.
But Toturi’s whirl of steel had forced him back.
It would end.
Kachiko.
Suddenly, the Emerald Champion staggered, the inertia of his blows reversing as he
stumbled back toward the stairs. The shinobi with the chain about her neck, having feigned her
death, had seized Toturi’s ankle, toppling his balance.
Aramoro lunged a final time.
His blade thrust cleanly through Toturi’s chest.
White surprise rimmed the Lion’s eyes. He swayed before falling backwards, down the
stairs, bouncing once before vanishing into the dark.
“Ha!” Aramoro flicked the Lion’s blood from his blade.
You are defeated, Akodo Toturi.
From outside, the clatter of rushing footsteps sounded. People approached the courtyard
below. Cries exploded below as the arriving party found the crushed guardsman outside a locked
door.

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 Aramoro had only moments.
Slinging the poisoned shinobi’s body over his shoulder, he gestured for his comrade to snatch
up his fallen throwing needles, erasing all shinobi presence from the room.
A crash indicated entry below.
He hissed.
No time for Toturi’s body.
He bounded out the window, fleeing across the tiled bridge pole, the chain fighter close
behind him. His naked face stung with the chill of the autumn night. The moon had finally crested
the Imperial palace, illuminating the Forbidden City with haunting light. He slunk into the shadows,
clenching his teeth.
This was for you, Kachiko.

Kaede didn’t wait for Ishikawa and his lantern as she dashed past the busted door. The thrumming
of her steps barely outsounded the pounding of her heart. The windows had been dark.
Had he retired early?
Her foot suddenly slipped. She gasped, clutching at the wall to regain her balance. Below
her in the dark pooled a slippery, warm puddle. She shuddered.
“No!” she gasped, her breath catching in her throat.
Ishikawa dashed forward with his lantern, the light swinging wildly.
There, before her, lay Toturi, framed in his own blood.
“What happened?” Ishikawa asked, scanning the dark chambers.
Kaede fell to her knees. Her fingers were shaking, but she managed to touch her poor
husband’s hand.
The skin was bloodless, cold.
Her vision had come true.
Toturi was gone.
She clenched his hand, a wail of despair building deep within her. Beneath her trembling
fingers, Kaede felt the meagerest flicker of life. She gasped. There, again. She felt the tremor of a
feeble heartbeat. In another moment, it would fade.
The shugenja shut her eyes, drawing upon the power down deep within her soul. She thrust
all from her mind. The Fire of her anger. Water of her sorrow. Air of her breath. Earth of her

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trembling body. Forsaking them all, she seized the emptiness between the elements, the emptiness
within herself, abandoning herself to the Void.
In a wave, the Realm of the Void rushed over her, nearly sweeping her away in its eagerness.
She clutched tightly to Toturi’s hand to anchor her, to not lose herself. Bursting from its depths, she
steadied herself on its churning surface.
There, beneath her, reflected upside down under the glassy surface, Toturi’s spirit wavered,
a fading specter that sank into the darkness.
“Toturi!” Kaede cried, reaching down through the starry ocean to her husband’s soul.
“Please, do not abandon me.”
His spirit looked at her before turning his back, floating down as if drawn down by a languid
current to enter a cavernous hole below. The gates to Meido. His reflection waned as he approached
it, as if to vanish forever upon passing through its doors.
No! she commanded everything. Using the Void to thread together all the elements, she drew
them to her. As if captured in a net, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water screamed, thrashing and quaking
and roaring, but she dragged them to her will, bowing them to the force of her soul in an invocation
that echoed through the fabric of time.
Toturi’s spirit stopped, pulled back in the wake of the elements.
“No, Kaede,” his voice boomed, spoken without his mouth. “Leave me to my death, and do
not gamble with your own fate.”
But her prayer lured him back. Slowly, his ghostly visage beneath the surface sharpened as
he came nearer, growing stronger as it drew life from her own reflection.
“This is not my fate,” she cried, their reflections merging, his soul breaching the border
between life and death. Her tears rippled across the water’s surface. “It is ours.”
Before her stood the powerful, unbroken reflection of her husband’s spirit. Gasping, she
released her hold on the Realm of the Void. The darkness ebbed from the world around her like a
receding tide from the shore. Toturi’s body re-emerged at her feet. The light of Ishikawa’s lantern
flickered on.
“Kaede,” Toturi mourned, his spirit voice dwindling with her trance. “What price have you
paid for me, my wife?”
From far away, Ishikawa’s voice echoed. “Kaede.”

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 He called her, but she ignored him. She just wanted to sleep, to slip down into the eternal
pits of oblivion. But his cry echoed in the hollow emptiness. She latched on to it, letting it draw her
back.
She opened her eyes. The trance of the Realm of the Void had finally broken. Ishikawa was
propping her up, shaking her awake.
“Kaede! He’s alive!” he shouted, a skeptical triumph in his voice. “Toturi lives.”
Her husband’s chest weakly rose and fell with breath. She clutched at his hand once more, a
timid warmth rising again in his skin. The flicker of his struggling pulse was enough for her to hope.
He would live.
But his spirit’s last words haunted her. She shuddered in spite of her conquest over death.
What would that weak heartbeat cost her?

Seppun Ishikawa only half-listened to the gate guards’ rambling report of the evening as Kaede and
her half-conscious husband slipped past them out of the Forbidden City. As Captain of the Seppun
Honor Guard, Ishikawa could draw the guards away from their posts, but only for a moment without
rousing suspicion. His meager distraction would only work if Kaede’s powers could cover their
escape in pure darkness. But she had overexerted herself. She sacrificed too much for Toturi.
He frowned, a twinge of jealousy wriggling in his chest.
If only he had died...
Ishikawa snapped the end of the thought off like a rotten branch. He was loyal to the Emerald
Champion, no matter who held the office. Even if it was Kaede’s husband.
“Please,” Kaede had begged for him, “we must leave tonight.”
“But to skulk out of the city like thieves?” Ishikawa had argued, the dishonor of the plan
irking him. “We cannot hide this attempt against the Emerald Champion’s life. I must rally the
guards. I must alert the Emperor.”
“Whoever has done this may return to kill Toturi if we reveal he yet lives,” Kaede pleaded.
Her tired eyes grew heavier with tears.
Ishikawa had looked away, unwilling to see her weep. His foremost duty to help the Emerald
Champion compelled him, even if it took Kaede away.
“I will help you,” he had promised. And she in turn had promised to return to the city once
Toturi was safely hidden.

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 The guards finished speaking, an awkward recognition growing between them as Ishikawa’s
frown deepened. Nodding their dismissal, he headed back toward the suites of the Emerald
Champion.
That wing of the palace was still dark. The Emerald Champion’s servants had not yet
returned from their evening meal to help their lord and lady retire for the night. He would need their
help, and their promise of secrecy, to clean up the mess. Toturi needed to vanish if his attacker’s
motive was to emerge. But who would arrange an attack against the Emperor’s own champion?
Ishikawa lifted his lantern to search for any sign the rooms could give him. A prayer to the
fortunes against the unclean slipped between his lips as the gory mess unfolded before him. The
corpse of the dead guard with the crushed helmet still lay in the hallway where he had dragged it.
The rooftop.
The other guard posted was missing.
A traitor, perhaps?
At the foot of the stairs, the pool of crimson congealed into a dark lake. The Emerald
Champion’s sword lay next to where Toturi’s body had been. He took up the ancient blade, its green
silk bindings somehow still spotless, and followed the bloody trail up the stairs to the study. Toturi’s
own daishō, its belt cords cut, lay far across the room.
Toturi had been disarmed.
Ishikawa approached Toturi’s abandoned writing desk. The yatate rested askew beside the
brushes, its inkwell snapped from its handle, sword marks marring its steel surface. Beside it, a stack
of letters sat jumbled, a tiny, pinpricked hole tunneling through them at an angle. He turned toward
the window to stare at the rooftop.
A throwing needle.
Ishikawa flinched, a cold sweat skittering across his body.
Shinobi.
The word throbbed in his mind like a cankered sore. He hissed a curse and tightened his grip
on the Emerald Champion’s sword. Someone was breaking the laws of Heaven to move against the
Emperor. He must find out who.

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Hour of the Rooster—The Gardens outside the Crane Guesthouse

Kuwanan had argued with Hotaru before—they had argued since he was old enough to speak—but
he still hated it when she was proven right. Since he had arrived in Otosan Uchi, every unfruitful
interview and investigative dead end had brought her words back to him.
The Fortunes may very well have decreed it was his time to return to the Karmic Wheel.
It could not be true. His father was a great man; the Emerald Champion’s time could not
simply end. It made no sense; there had to be a reason, a culprit.
His sandals echoed hollowly on the path beneath him, the yoriki beside him spoke empty
words of flattery and sympathy, and no revelations were forthcoming.
“The evening grows cool,” Kuwanan interjected, as the man paused for breath.
“It does, my lord.” The man had introduced himself as Kitsuki Kāgi, but there was nothing
of the Kitsuki about him. Kuwanan was sure Kāgi would only notice clues he was specifically
ordered to find. “Shall we take this path?” Kāgi suggested. “I believe we can reach the guesthouse
without interrupting the preparations for the recital.”
“Thank you, Kāgi-san,” Kuwanan said, all politeness. Then he fell silent. It was better to say
nothing when there was nothing to be said. He had found that silence might invite answers to surface
more readily than questions.
“It has been an honor to accompany you today,” Kāgi said. Perhaps there really was nothing
of note to be had from the magistrate. “I served your father humbly for many years and held him in

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great esteem. No matter that sometimes relations between our clans were somewhat—frayed. There
was a mutual respect between us.”
“Pardon the question,” Kuwanan said, “but you do not speak of the Dragon.”
“No. I was Matsu before I was Kitsuki.”
So that was why Akodo Toturi sent Kāgi to aid him—he was doubly loyal to the new
Emerald Champion. Every question Kuwanan asked would be relayed to the Lion. Perhaps Kāgi
had even worked to foil his investigation.
“It was kind of the Emerald Champion to send his chief yoriki to allay my concerns,”
Kuwanan said, intending to dismiss Kāgi as quickly as possible. “But since he has not seen fit to
reopen the investigation, there seems little left to discuss.”
No response; the yoriki remained silent. Kuwanan glanced at the man, who walked with his
hands hidden in his sleeves, eyes focused on the reddening sky.
“The Emerald Champion simply feels the matter was sufficiently dealt with by the Ruby
Champion,” Kāgi said at last. “Agasha Sumiko commissioned a second investigation into your
father’s death. His correspondence and records were again investigated. Nothing untoward was
found.”
“I would like to see these records for myself.”
“Then I shall appeal to my lord champion on your behalf, since they have passed to his
safekeeping in the Palace of the Emerald Champion.”
Kuwanan repressed a sigh. He would have to return there, of course. It would feel like taking
a step back, but if there was nothing to learn here, then there was no reason to stay.
“Although, I suppose some of his more personal effects might still be held in the Crane
Guesthouse,” Kāgi said.
Of course. Kuwanan had the restraint not to run, but he quickened his pace toward the
guesthouse, not caring if he outpaced Kāgi, who hesitated briefly before deigning to match his steps.
To think that evidence may have lain so close to where he slept, while he travelled the capital
every waking moment seeking answers from servants and courtiers, neglecting to look closer to
home...
The circuitous path finally took them to the main entrance of the guesthouse. A statue of the
original Hantei with his sister Doji stood outside, their gaze passing serenely over them. Kuwanan
paused. This was something he wished to do alone.

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 “You have been most helpful,” he said. “I think we have learned all we can today.”
It was meant as a polite dismissal, but Kāgi hesitated.
“Perhaps, as his heir, your sister should be the one to sort through your father’s documents,”
he suggested.
“She has had ample time.” Kuwanan offered a polite bow, which Kāgi bested at once with a
lower one.
“It has been a pleasure to offer my humble assistance,” Kāgi said, and finally withdrew.
Kuwanan could have hurried inside, but instead he paused, raising his eyes to the statue. Up
close, there was a sternness to the set of Hantei’s mouth, as though he disapproved of something.
Leaders had to make hard decisions, take actions they would rather avoid. The Kami had fought his
own kin, defeated his own father, because he knew it was the right thing to do, it was his duty. Did
Hotaru truly believe she acted out of duty, that she did the right thing?
Yet, what was true for the Kami was not true for mortals, who lived to serve. Even clan
champions must respect their elders, their superiors, their fathers. To do anything else threatened
the Celestial Order—the Will of Heaven. It was not Hotaru’s place to decide where her duty lay: it
was clearly written in their very births. Their duty was to their family, their clan, and the Empire.
There was no other truth. But to be derelict in one’s duty...to betray one’s very birthright...
Servants attended him as he entered the guesthouse, showing him at once to the room where
his father’s things were kept. No one challenged his right to see them; in this sanctuary of Crane
hospitality, no one would be so impolite as to question him. Kuwanan knelt inside the room, and let
the servant slide the door closed behind him.
It was a pleasant room, clearly aired daily as it smelt of the sweet kinmokusei in the garden.
His father’s things had been arranged as though Satsume himself might yet use them; his cypress-
wood desk placed where it caught the remaining sunlight streaming through the window, papers
stacked neatly in boxes within reach, a thick mat for his time-worn knees. There were Kakita-made
vases of blue and white in the corners of the room that Kuwanan recognized from home. His father
had brought carefully selected pieces with him, a reminder of the Esteemed Palaces of the Crane.
Kuwanan moved to the boxes and began sorting through his father’s scrolls. The letters were
trivial, the documents insignificant. Kāgi was right; anything concerning the Empire would be in
Akodo Toturi’s safekeeping now. He went through each box, as the sunlight faded and the red
leached from the sky outside. Servants brought lamps, and still he searched for clues in the scrolls.

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There was nothing unexpected or suspicious, only evidence of his father’s diligent work, and his
devotion to duty. Such a man had earned a thorough investigation into his death.
Kuwanan turned to look at the desk again, imagining his father at work.
There was a writing box on the desk that he did not recognize at first. He moved closer. It
was not his father’s style, the airy images of cranes in flight inlaid in the wood too wistful, too
delicate. Then he remembered long, slender fingers raising the lid of that box—his mother’s
fingers—that used the contents with such skill. He had once copied her calligraphy with his own
inelegant hands, hands like his father’s.
Satsume would not have used his wife’s brushes, made for smaller hands. He had kept that
box as a reminder of her. Whatever Hotaru might think, Satsume had cared deeply for their mother,
and here was the proof.
Kuwanan knelt at his father’s desk and put his fingers to the smooth wood of his mother’s
writing box. He lifted the lid and found her brushes, so carefully stored, as clean and perfect as
though they had never been used. Then he twisted the box, and the compartment at the bottom slid
open, revealing a handful of scrolls.
His father had hidden these for a reason. Would he want his son to read them, or were they
better left unread? Now that he was gone, there was no way of knowing, but the answers to many
other questions might lie in these scrolls. One by one, Kuwanan slid them from their hiding place.
One bore his sister’s seal. What letter was so precious their father intended to keep it secreted
away?

Hour of the Rat—Imperial Chancellor’s Apartment in the Imperial Palace

Letter-writing was one of the most satisfying of arts—a welcome distraction after a day at court. A
single well-chosen character could alter the meaning of the whole, as well as the sentiment behind
the words. The impression the reader derived from the shape of the kanji, the hue of the ink, the
scent of the paper. Each element had its part to play. A fine duelist might find the same beauty in a
kata correctly performed, but the perfect letter could cut as keenly as any sword.
The lamps had long since been lit, but Kakita Yoshi took his time over his letter to Kakita
Yuri, a man who would appreciate its subtlety. It was his pleasure to inform Yuri that his daughter
had been liberated from the Lion, as promised. Kakita Asami was safely on her way to Kyūden

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Kitsune to continue an important diplomatic mission. Yuri would be grateful, and it was important
to remain the focus of that gratitude. Yoshi had to phrase the news delicately, to ensure Yuri knew
he owed him a favor. No matter that Yoshi had not needed to orchestrate Asami’s change of fortune
himself.
Sending news of good fortune for his clan was a pleasure he had been largely denied of late,
and he savored each brushstroke.
“Forgive me, my lord.”
Yoshi froze, brush poised in the air. Eyes gazed unblinking from the shadowed corner of the
room, glinting in the lamplight for a moment too long, before bowing to the floor. If Yoshi had not
recognized her voice, he might have thought her a ghost come to frighten him, but he did not fear
this lowborn woman.
“You should not be here,” he said.
“Forgive me,” she repeated, “but I have news you may wish to hear.”
She sat up, keeping her eyes lowered, but he was not fooled by her apparent meekness.
“What news could not wait?” he asked.
“The Son of Heaven has left this world behind,” she said, glancing up briefly to see his
reaction.
Yoshi did not react, but merely set down his brush.
“You are sure?” he asked. “You saw with your own eyes?”
“I’m certain,” she said. “I did not see the body, but there is no doubt. The Emperor is dead.”
That changed everything. Now came that period of uncertainty when power shifted and
loyalties were tested. With Hantei XXXVIII gone, Bayushi Shoju no longer had his best friend in
the man who sat the throne. Bayushi Kachiko didn’t have her claws in young Sotorii—yet. And
there was still a chance he could solidify the betrothal of Doji Chiyoe to the Crown Prince.
“Why is it you bring me this news?” he asked, half to himself. “Why is this not proclaimed
loudly from one end of the palace to the other? The whole Empire should be in mourning.”
“I learned through whispers,” she said, “as I always do. The guards remain mute, but the
servants who polish his floors, who clean his sheets...”
“His Imperial Majesty’s floors!” Yoshi interrupted, appalled in equal measure by her casual
tone and the news that brought her to him. “Your Emperor is dead!”

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 His own words startled him, as though he had not believed it until he heard himself speak it.
The Emperor was dead, and someone had delayed the spread of the news. As Imperial Chancellor,
he should have been among the first to know, through official channels. He should not have to rely
on messengers like this, whose presence disturbed his peace.
“Who ordered silence?” he asked.
“Those who seek to control the whispers. Who is powerful enough to dam the deluge this
news brings? Some names I won’t speak aloud, not for any reward. Otherwise, I risk becoming just
another missing servant when dawn breaks.”
“You will be rewarded,” he promised. “Although your lack of grief offends me and the
gods.”
She threw herself to the floor, gasped and wept, tore at her servant garb, but only for a
moment. Then she was gone through his window, leaving the shutters open as she left. Yoshi sat in
the chill breeze and stared after her, appalled at her sham of humility, and at himself for relying on
such a creature.
There were those who would demonstrate true grief at the Emperor’s death. What would
Lady Ryoku do, when she heard the news? He might be the one to tell her, but not yet. He could not
reveal his knowledge, not until he knew for sure who tried to keep it from him.
He had his suspicions, of course. There were few powerful enough to keep such a thing quiet.
He felt the hand of the Scorpion in this, and it stung as bitterly as the chill that blew in through the
open window. Bayushi Kachiko had the power to give such orders, and she was bold enough to do
so. She knew that, as soon as he learned the truth, Yoshi could consolidate his authority alongside
the new emperor. She would be unable to stand the thought of him having more power than she did,
but surely she only delayed the inevitable. Unless she needed time to put some nefarious scheme
into action or had something she wished to hide.
Could she have been involved in the Emperor’s death? She was not a woman to leave
anything to chance, and the Emperor’s age and failing health would make it easy for one such as
her... No, even Kachiko would not risk offending the Heavens themselves.
Yet what if she had? If she or one of her agents had killed the Emperor, what would her next
move be? Could assassins be on their way to ensure he never gained Sotorii’s confidence?
Yoshi shivered. He rose to close the shutters against the night, as the door slid open behind
him with a whisper. No servant spoke, no guest announced their presence. Yoshi turned slowly to

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face the silent intruder, wishing for the first time since he was a boy that he could draw steel and
take courage from it. As it was, he took refuge in his pride, drawing himself taller, and displaying
nothing but perfect poise as the figure stepped into the room.
Yoshi’s breath left him as the apparition moved into the lamplight with the deadly grace of
a born warrior, pale kimono hanging from broad shoulders. Long silver hair swept across the sharp-
featured face in the night breeze, and bright eyes stared from sockets darkened by weariness. Yoshi
nearly said the words: Lord Satsume, but the ghost spoke first.
“Kakita-dono!”
The voice that broke the silence did not belong to the late Emerald Champion, but to his son,
Doji Kuwanan. Had he too heard the news?
“Chancellor, forgive my haste, but I must speak with you.”
“Of course, Doji-sama.” Instinct told him Kuwanan was here on some other matter, so Yoshi
made no mention of the Emperor. He bowed to Kuwanan and offered to summon servants to bring
tea.
“No, please. We must speak alone—” Kuwanan insisted, “—truly alone.” He slid the door
closed.
Yoshi pushed aside his desk and they knelt close together, the breeze plucking at their hair
and clothes. Kuwanan had a scroll in his left hand. Kuwanan placed his katana to his right, his
movements slow but his eyes alight and intense, brightened by some great purpose. Yoshi had seen
that look before on Satsume’s face, the night before he gained the title of Emerald Champion.
I must not lose, Yoshi-san, because I cannot let him win.
“I have been looking into my father’s death,” Kuwanan said, his voice hushed. “I have found
what I feared, and more. Worse.”
Yet his face remained a mask; Satsume had raised the boy well.
“Before he died, my father sent a letter here, for safekeeping. A letter bearing my sister’s
seal.” Kuwanan paused, as though fortifying that mask. “It was not a letter sent to my father, but
one he had intercepted. A letter from the Crane Clan Champion to the Imperial Advisor.”
Kachiko. Why was their champion writing to Kachiko, without his knowledge?
“I need to know,” Kuwanan went on, “if it might be a forgery.”
“May I see the letter?” Yoshi asked. It took all his restraint to keep from snatching it from
Kuwanan’s hand.

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 “I am hoping you will examine it for me,” Kuwanan said, “but what you read you must never
reveal. This could bring shame to our family and our clan. I know my father would wish this secret
kept.”
“You have my secrecy, as he always did,” Yoshi said, eyes on the scroll. The paper was a
pleasant shade of creamy white, the quality fine enough to be Crane.
Kuwanan handed him the scroll with both hands, like a gift. Yoshi unrolled it, and peered at
the words in the lamplight, admiring their form despite the content. The brushwork was elegant, the
ink a shade paler than the blue her father had favored. It appeared to be her hand, and yet, how could
she write such things?
Hotaru wrote of her hatred for her father, Lord of the Crane and Emerald Champion. A man
she should have held in greatest respect. She wrote that she wished to leave the Crane lands behind
and be with Kachiko, the woman who had been clawing away Crane power for years, who he had
worked tirelessly to overcome.
“Your father should never have had to read this,” he said. “Your sister should never have
written it.” Yoshi raised his eyes for a moment, but immediately dropped them when he saw
Kuwanan’s face twist. He waited for the boy to compose himself. Kuwanan was not as astute as his
sister when it came to reading people, but he was dutiful and honorable. In many ways, he would
be better suited to the role of champion. He took sound advice, as his father had.
“Then, you believe it is genuine?” Kuwanan asked.
Yoshi could not be entirely sure, but if it was a forgery, it was beyond his substantial skill to
determine. He detected passion in the shape of the characters, and a strong sense of grief in the kanji
chosen. Hotaru had allowed her emotions to overcome her sense of duty, making her a Scorpion
puppet. No wonder Hotaru had been unwilling to enter the Tournament of the Emerald Champion;
it would have gone against Kachiko’s plans. Was it Kachiko’s idea to sell Kakita art as well? The
pair were bent on dismantling the Crane’s very identity. Hotaru was Clan Champion, but the clan
must come first.
“It is no forgery,” he said.
Kuwanan sat silently, his eyes unfocused as he thought. He had spoken out against her
before, Yoshi only had to rekindle some of that anger.
“This is very troubling,” Yoshi said, “especially in light of recent events.”
Kuwanan looked up. “Which recent events?”

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 “The Son of Heaven has left us,” Yoshi said. He paused, allowing time for Kuwanan to
absorb his words.
“The Emperor is dead?” Kuwanan asked.
“Yet we have been left to sleep, when the palace should hold vigil,” Yoshi said. “I believe
the Scorpion mean to take control. They have been gaining power in the capital, ingratiating
themselves with the Emperor, as well as the youngest prince.”
Kuwanan said nothing. Perhaps he already knew what was coming, but he needed to hear it,
so Yoshi continued: “Now it seems Doji Hotaru is working with Kachiko, whose goal has long been
to undermine Crane influence. I believe it is all part of some greater plan, a plan they intend to put
into action now, before revealing the Emperor’s death.”
Kuwanan started to rise, but caught himself and settled back on his knees. He had to come
to the decision on his own. Yoshi rerolled the scroll and held it out. The young Crane’s eyes widened
but he did not take it. Betrayal within a family was no easy thing to accept.
“I will keep this secret for you,” Yoshi said, “but we cannot allow this Scorpion treachery.”
Kuwanan took the scroll from Yoshi’s hands. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a
whisper.
“I had suspected the Scorpion, but my sister?”
“If your father confronted her about the contents of this letter, or even threatened to disinherit
her...”
“She tried to prevent me from investigating, as she feared I’d find the letter,” Kuwanan said.
“But even if she wrote these words—even if she hated our father—she would never act out of
hatred.”
“She would not have had to act, herself. Kachiko was born Shosuro. She must have access
to all manner of poisons. Your father’s death, even his failing health, might not have been as natural
as we were all led to believe.”
The flash of horror in Kuwanan’s eyes told Yoshi his words had hit the mark.
“My sister could only have offended the Heavens more if she had killed our father with her
own hands,” Kuwanan said. “She has betrayed her duty. She cannot be allowed to lead our clan.”
“Someone must act.”
Kuwanan nodded, his lips pressed tight as though afraid to speak his thoughts.

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 Yoshi waited for the words he knew would come. If Crane fought Crane, he would have to
choose a side—publicly. The clan would be divided, and his support would lend weight to
Kuwanan’s claim, but if Kuwanan lost...
Hotaru had led the clan as close to ruin as they had ever been, on the battlefield and in the
courts. The Crane had lost Toshi Ranbo because of her, a loss Satsume would have felt keenly. Her
father had doubted her ability to lead and been proved right. Kuwanan was the better choice; surely,
he could not do worse.
“I must challenge my sister’s right to be Crane Champion,” Kuwanan said at last, making
his choice. It was time for Yoshi to confirm his, as well. He bent to the floor before Satsume’s son.
“I pledge my loyalty to you, Doji Kuwanan,” he said. “As I swore to your father, I swear to
follow you.”
“Thank you, Kakita-dono, for your support.”
“I suggest you send word of our suspicions to Daidoji Uji, to ensure his support as well. And
you should inform Shiba Tsukune, to honor our alliances with the Phoenix.”
“I will do as you suggest,” Kuwanan agreed.
“And allow me to speak to the Emerald Champion on your behalf, to determine where his
loyalties lie. If the Imperial Advisor seeks to take control, Akodo Toturi may be the only one in a
position to prevent her.”
“I suspect we will receive little help from Toturi,” Kuwanan said, a touch of bitterness in his
voice. “Seek what support you can here. Until our clan is united, there is little I can do in the capital.
I must go. I must challenge the right of Doji Hotaru to be clan champion.”
“A new era begins for us all,” Yoshi said, watching Kuwanan tuck the scroll away. “With
you as Champion, the Crane can steer the Empire’s new course, as is our duty.”
Kuwanan lifted his sword from its place beside him and drew the blade from its sheath,
raising it to shine as silver as the moonlight now visible through the window. The moment held
infinite possibilities, and while Yoshi could not guess what Kuwanan thought, he imagined where
that sword might end up. Crane blood on a Crane blade. What would Satsume think of such choices,
if he were here?
Kuwanan lifted his free hand and took hold of his long hair, gripping it firmly in his fist. He
held his blade a breath from the back of his neck, then drew his sword across in one quick, silent
stroke, cutting a perfectly straight line. A few white strands escaped his grip and drifted gently down,

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until caught by a gust of wind and swept away into some dark corner. Yoshi remained seated as
Kuwanan rose to stand with the length of hair still in his fist. He had made some terrible promise to
himself, to his sword, and Yoshi was his witness. His path was set now. He would take that sword
to duel his sister, and kin would fight kin.
Kuwanan left silently, his shoulders set, his blade still in his hand. He turned briefly and
Yoshi caught a glance of his pale face, mouth a grim line, an icy resolution in his eyes. Yoshi had
always thought the boy looked like his father, the image of Satsume in his youth, but no one would
mistake him for his father now.

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Hour of the Rat—The Forbidden City, Guest Quarters

This was the third time this evening that heavy footsteps thumping past her room broke Shahai’s
concentration. At this rate, she would never finish her father’s letter. She wrinkled her nose at her
brushwork mistake, then crumpled the paper up and tossed it into the mouth of the ceramic bowl
lantern. Briefly, her sparse room became even more amber cast.
What time was it? It had to be the Hour of the Rat, at least. She was used to restless nights,
but at least it was a chance to compose her letters or carve cuttlefish bone molds for casting her
meishōdō jewelry. She was also used to the nighttime silence of the palace. But tonight was different.
Why were people rushing past her door at this hour?
It wouldn’t be servants. Servants were quiet, and they used the servant paths between the
walls, not the main hallways. Guards, then? She sat up. What was going on?
Never mind. It didn’t matter, really. What did she care about the intrigues of the palace?
Whatever it was, would it improve her sorry lot or free her from this prison?
Shahai gathered her writing implements and tossed them along with a roll of papers into her
satchel. Then she donned another kimono over her sleeping robes. She wasn’t going to get anything
done here with all the noise, but there was always her special quiet place.
There were a few guards about, but the halls were mostly empty. Only two guards rushed
past her as she made her way outside. They were escorting a small entourage of servants,
handmaidens judging from their garb. They, like everyone else, paid Shahai no attention. She forgot
them as soon as they passed.

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 The garden air was crisp tonight. She could almost set aside her lantern due to the brightness
of the perfect moon. Doji Shizue would be at the moon viewing party, assuming it hadn’t concluded
by now. Shahai had been invited, but she found little appeal sitting among gossiping strangers as
they gawked at the sky, nor in accepting an invite extended only out of politeness. That her absence
implied insult was of no consequence.
Shahai found the path to her hidden garden copse, pausing only to be sure she hadn’t been
followed before stepping through. As she walked, the palace came into view, rising above the hedge.
The paper windows of the second floor glowed. Shahai couldn’t stop looking at them, square-shaped
lights against a starless night. She stumbled on branches and swatted at brush, reminding herself to
regard the path, but her attention always returned to those windows. Something really was going on
tonight. Was there an intruder in the palace?
No, that would be exciting. Nothing exciting ever happened.
Her foot snagged. Rose thorns bit through her sock, and she stumbled like a foal into the
clearing, landing roughly on her hands and knees. In the fog of night and her own thoughts, she
hadn’t realized that she’d already arrived at her destination.
She hadn’t realized that she wasn’t alone.
Hantei Sotorii sat on a thin blanket near the center of the clearing, half-painted in the light
of a nearby paper lantern. Before him lay several sheets of mulberry paper and a wet inkbrush. A
blade shone awkwardly in his hands, trembling and dipping with its own weight, the tip tracing a
finger’s breadth from his stomach, as if he was going to...
He looked up. Eye contact. He tensed like a startled deer.
She held her breath. If she moved, he would bolt. He had that look about him, of a fawn
caught nibbling medicinal herbs in her father’s garden. Her eyes bounced between the naked blade
and his reddening face. A voice within, sounding like her father, suggested she should feel some
alarm, or even compassion. But she couldn’t stir up anything. Just a sense of absurdity, like she’d
interrupted a poorly acted play.
“W-what are you doing?” she found herself asking.
“Nothing!” He sheathed the sword in an instant, jamming it into his obi. He pawed up his
papers and swiped up the lantern, dragging himself up in shambles. Had he been crying?

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 “You saw nothing,” he barked, voice cracking. “Forget this ever happened! I wasn’t here!”
Apparently forgetting his blanket, he crashed through the brush, dropping several papers in his
retreat.
Shahai stood in the dark, her own breathing filling her ears. After several moments, she
brought her hand to her face, gripped her cheek between her thumb and forefinger, and tugged.
Yes. She was awake. Sotorii had been here. That had happened.
A snaking breeze rustled one of the fallen papers. Absently she picked it up and read the
words brushed there.

Red petals scatter

Black feathers sweep the floor clean
My hands are filthy

Shahai read it again. And again. This was a death poem. The last words of a samurai, written
just before they passed.
He was committing seppuku. Honorable suicide. The last resort of the disgraced, a death by
evisceration that absolved the dying of disgraceful action. He might have even gone through with
it, had she not interrupted him.
She repeated the thought to herself several times. Each time it became more real. Sotorii—
Daisetsu’s brother and the crown prince of the Empire—had wanted to die.
Good. Perhaps death would improve him.
As she read it once more, a smile worked its way across her features. She didn’t understand
all of the imagery, but it seemed as though he felt guilty about something. If Sotorii felt guilty
enough to fall on his sword, then why shouldn’t he go through with it? And if Sotorii did, then
wouldn’t that make Daisetsu, as the next surviving kin, the proper heir to the throne?
Yes, Daisetsu would become Emperor! Not that brat! Daisetsu!
She had to tell him.
Carefully she folded the paper. Her hands shook with excitement. He’d want to see it, no
doubt. She would present it to him, like a gift. Yes, it was a present for the rightful heir. The better
heir. One that didn’t play warrior with the Imperial ancestral sword when no one was looking, one
that didn’t terrorize the servants or injure the Ruby Champion to make a point. Someone admirable.

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Looking up, the cloud-raked moon almost looked like an eye touched by a smile. When had she last
felt such hope for the future?
Tucking the poem away, she made for the palace, where some windows on the third floor—
and the Imperial domicile—were just starting to light up.

“Come no closer!” The Seppun guard thrust out his palm just as Shahai turned into the hallway.
There were five others, dressed in Imperial green and gold, unarmored but holding sheathed
nagamaki and tensing at her approach. The one in charge, with the flowing jacket nearly dragging
on the floor, laid his hand on the handle of a tachi hanging from his silk belt. “This is a restricted
area. Leave immediately!”
“That is the Iuchi woman!” one of the younger guards announced. He was vaguely familiar.
“What are you doing here? Go back to your quarters!”
“Your brother is in my class,” Shahai remarked. She frowned. “He performs poorly.”
Snickers arose from the others. The guard gripped his oversized nagamaki handle.
“Shahai-san?” came a gentle voice.
Daisetsu stepped into the hallway, pushing past the clustered Seppun. Shahai started to greet
him, but something about his expression stopped her. He was listless, his hair let down, his face
without the usual dusting of makeup. Over his bedtime yukata, he wore a pearl-hued sleeping jacket.
His obi belt was sheet white.
Those were mourning garments. Had Sotorii gone through with it? Did Daisetsu already
know?
The sergeant of the guards blocked Daisetsu’s path with an extended arm. “Your highness,
please return to your bedchambers. This guest is simply... lost.”
“Let her through,” he said. “I wish to see her. I wish to talk with her. Leave us alone.”
The guard hesitated. “Your highness... I cannot do that. Given the circumstances—”
“She is a shugenja. I seek spiritual guidance. I must confide in private.” Daisetsu offered a
challenging look. “In this dark hour, would you deny this to your prince?”
The guard paled. “Of course not, my lord!” The guards parted, and Shahai stepped between
them, crossing over the polished threshold and the red torii arch built into the hallway. The floor
chirped beneath her steps, and she smelled agarwood burning. Beyond, she saw an octagonal room

499
of pine and silk, built around a coal box with an iron kettle suspended over it by a chain. A tea room,
perhaps. So, this was the entrance to the Imperial domicile.
“A few minutes,” the guard said to her. “Then we will escort you to your room.”
Daisetsu sat on an emerald cushion. “Bring us some tea, while you are leaving.”
The guard bristled at the instruction, but his mask of self-control remained in place. As he
closed the door, another Seppun sprinted from down the hall, face red and puffing. “My lord, we’ve
searched the floor, but we still cannot find—”
“Silence, fool!” the guard hissed, and shut the door behind Shahai. She heard them retreat
down the hall.
They were searching for someone. Sotorii?
She gathered her thoughts. “My prince—” she began.
“I said I wished to be alone.”
She blinked. Began to reply. But then what she’d assumed to have been a wall slid aside.
Daisetsu’s yōjimbō, armed and displeased, stepped into the room. He offered her a look that could
curdle soybeans.
“My lord,” he protested, “I will not leave you alone in your family’s guest chambers with an
older woman at this time of night. My duty is to protect not only your life, but your honor, and so I
must—”
“I said leave!” Daisetsu shouted.
Shahai jumped in her seat. The prince’s shrill voice cut through the chamber like a lightning
bolt. The yōjimbō’s eyes went wide.
He shouted again. “I order you to go!”
The yōjimbō fell to his knees.
“I am your prince!” He rose. “You will do as I say!”
The yōjimbō pushed his forehead into the floor.
“Go!”Shahai’s wide eyes followed him as he backed out of the room on all fours. He never
lifted his head once, not even when he opened the door.
They were alone. Daisetsu fumed in the corner. Her tongue turned to lead, heavy and mute.
She’d never seen him explode like that.
Daisetsu spoke. “Father is dead.”

500
 Shahai felt as if she’d been pushed into an icy pond. Every part of her that could move was
frozen. The Emperor. The Son of Heaven. A guilty thought pushed to the surface of her mind: What
did this mean for her?
“They found him an hour ago. They say his heart just... stopped.” Daisetsu looked at her
with wounded eyes. “I am sorry to burden you, Shahai. I did not want you to see me like... like this.”
His tears glittered in the dim light as they traced down his cheeks. “But as you are a priestess of the
kami, I ask you: he is at peace now, yes? In Tengoku? With grandfather.” He shuddered, a brittle
leaf in the wind. “How does one properly mourn the loss of the one who gave them everything?”
A wave of guilt crashed through her, leaving her cold and numb. He needed her now, her
priestly guidance, her sympathetic ear. But her mind was filled with the image of Sotorii curled over
a blade. The rough mulberry paper scratched against her collar.
“What is it, Shahai?” Confusion flickered across his features. Shame brought heat to her
cheeks. Even in this state, he had concern to spare.
He deserved to know. She produced the paper and offered it. “You should see this, my
prince.”
As his eyes traveled across the page, growing ever-wider, she continued in a low tone. “I
found your brother in the garden just now. I interrupted his seppuku. In his haste to leave, he dropped
this paper. I believe it was meant to be his death poem.”
At first, Daisetsu simply stared. Then slowly his fingers curled. The paper crumpled. His
knuckles turned white.
Shahai was suddenly aware of her quickening heartbeat. “I... I could be mistaken.”
His voice was eerily calm. “There are mistakes in the brushwork. This is a practice version
written on good paper.” He lowered the page. “You are not mistaken. This is my brother’s.”
Her mind shouted commands in the following silence. Say something. Do something.
Anything, anything except sit there staring at his viper-like glare while all your heat drains through
your feet into the floor.
“Why don’t I go see him?” He sprung up and made for the door. “Yes, I think I will. The
guards don’t know where to look, but I do. I should congratulate him on this most excellent poem.”
He glanced at her from the entrance. “You may come if you wish.”
She didn’t. But neither was she going to leave him alone. There was something about his
gait, the calmness of his voice, the violence with which he gripped that paper. All disparate. She

501
couldn’t leave him alone like this. So, she followed as he descended the staircase, his mourning
jacket fluttering behind him.
Three darkened hallways, into a study.
No one there. Fine. Next.
Two halls and a cloister. A darkened dōjō. No one. Next.
The halls were dizzying, the rooms never-ending. She kept pace, glancing at his stony
expression, his eyes full of purpose. They passed no guards. Where were all the guards? Shouldn’t
the palace be swarming with them? Just yesterday, she couldn’t turn a corner without receiving a
glare from—
There. A flickering light within a tea room. He was hunched over the coal box, wakizashi
still tucked into his obi, feeding papers to the coals. He froze, and again Shahai’s mind filled with
what she’d seen in the garden.
Daisetsu stormed in and extended the page. “You forgot one, Sotorii!”
“Give that to me!” He swiped for it, but Daisetsu stepped back, holding the page out of reach.
“This was to be your death poem?”
The heat of the coals was nothing compared to Sotorii’s glare, and Shahai cast her eyes to
the floor. “What of it?” the elder brother hissed.
“It just seems too honest for you,” said Daisetsu. He held it up. “Red petals. ‘Your hands are
stained.’ Did you know father died tonight, brother?”
Sweat glinted on Sotorii’s brow. “I don’t... I...”
“I know a confession when I read one, even one so clumsy.” Daisetsu spoke through
clenched teeth. “What. Did. You. Do?”
It seemed that Sotorii would protest. He braced himself, as if to face down a charging steed.
But then his expression fell with his shoulders, and he was on his knees, face in his hands.
“I killed him. I killed our father.”
Shahai’s hands cupped her mouth. His own father? The Son of Heaven?
Sotorii’s words came heavy with anguish. “I didn’t mean to. It just happened. It was so fast...
I can’t even remember doing it. It was as though I’d lost control.”
Shahai’s head swam, the sheer blasphemy robbing her of breath. In that instant she saw her
own father’s face, his loving smile, his proud eyes on the day of her first horseback ride. She loved
her father. She could never imagine taking his life. How could any child?

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 Sotorii looked suddenly to her and pleaded with his eyes. “I wish I could take it back. I’d do
anything to go back, to fix it.”
“Then split your belly.”
Shahai blinked. Had Daisetsu really said that? Sotorii seemed just as confused, as if he hadn’t
comprehended the words.
“Go on,” Daisetsu continued. “Kill yourself. You had it right. Seppuku is the only way.” He
paused. “But then, you are not worthy to use a wakizashi, are you? No, that is for honorable samurai,
after all.”
Sotorii spoke weakly. “Stop it. That’s—”
“You would probably fail to do that too. You learned nothing from Satsume-sama, after all.
You cannot even hold a blade properly.” He sneered. “We didn’t think you would pass gempuku,
but thankfully father was able to offer a few favors. Not that you were ever grateful.”
Sotorii’s jaw dropped. “What? You... you’re saying father—”
“Oh yes,” Daisetsu crooned, eyes narrowing. Shahai could sense the malice dancing in them.
“They never told you. I cannot imagine what boon he must have offered so they would let you pass.
Walking through these halls with your chest puffed out, but deep down you know everyone here
loathes you. They talk about you behind your back. Even if you did sit on the throne, it’s not like
anyone would take you seriously. Name one friend of yours among the court. I’ll bet you haven’t
even bothered to learn anyone’s name.”
“Shut up!” Sotorii shouted. “Shut up!”
Daisetsu smiled, reveling his brother’s anguish. He knew just what to say, just where to stick
the knife. Whatever had held him back before, it was gone now. Shahai watched in mute horror.
She’d never seen Daisetsu act like this. Never seen him so cruel.
Don’t ever let me become like him.
“That’s enough,” she whispered.
No one heard her. Daisetsu stepped boldly into Sotorii’s reach. “Well, you will discover who
your friends are soon enough. Because I will tell everyone what you have done. Even if it never
leaves the Forbidden City, the court will know that you killed father.”
Sotorii snapped, his voice booming. “Then that makes us even! Because mother wished she
were dead after you were born!”
Stunned, oppressive silence.

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 And then.Daisetsu pushed Sotorii to the floor.
“Stop!”
But they didn’t listen. They fought like enemies. Like brothers. Biting. Nails raking skin.
Punching. Kicking. They were squabbling rats.
Until the blade slid free. Daisetsu held the wakizashi high. Naked steel caught the light.
Sotorii weakly shielded his face with his hand. The blade came down.
“Daisetsu!” Shahai’s cry filled the room.
The blade stopped. The boy turned. His lips curled from his teeth in a feral grimace, his nose
wrinkled, his eyes ablaze. It was a demon’s anger, coated in hate.
“What are you doing, Daisetsu?”
The anger dissolved. He blinked, confused, hesitating. It was as if he’d awoken from a
dream. This wasn’t who he was.
Sotorii lunged. Daisetsu reeled from his backhand. The sword clattered to the floor. Sotorii
scooped it up.
This couldn’t be happening. Shahai leaped forward to grab the sword. Sotorii spun, striking
her in the cheek with the pommel. Lights flashed in her vision. She stumbled back. His irrational
anger burned in the coals.
She drew a meishōdō trinket from her obi as he advanced. She knew the name of the kami
that could calm him, soothe his—
He swung. The sword struck the trinket, sending it smashing against the wall.
No! Shahai stepped back. The wall stopped her. He pressed forward, the sword arcing.
But she still had her antler horn dagger.
Reflexively she drew it from her obi, freeing the blade with a slash.
Sotorii screamed, reeling back.
A thin cut against the meat of his hand, little more than a scratch, wept red.
“You cut me!” he cried. He clutched the tiny wound and hissed. “I’m bleeding!” Anger, hate,
humiliation, it all poured from his eyes in a river of tears. He threw back his head and shouted.
“Guards!”
Above, the thundering sound of heavy steps. A stampede.
From the nearby halls, the sounds of swords drawing free.
The world fell away. The floor collapsed beneath her. She slid down. Everything was numb.

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 I’m undone. I’m finished.
The circumstances wouldn’t matter. She’d attacked an Imperial heir. Injured him. Her life
was officially forfeit.
I’m dead.
A hand on her wrist. Daisetsu, dragging her to her feet, onto solid ground. They were
running. Both of them. Voices clattering in the halls behind them.
“You need to leave the city,” he said.
Another fake wall slid aside. She was in a servant’s hall. Running. Her heart pounded in her
ears as she gasped for breath. Running. To where?
“Just run!” Daisetsu shouted behind her, as if reading her thoughts. “Just run!”
She did. Shahai ran into the darkness.

Daisetsu packed her things by the light of the lantern’s glow. It was risky to return to her room, but
then, as he’d reasoned, that made this the last place the guards would look. Had it been any other
evening, had it been just an hour ago, the notion of a boy alone with her in her room at night would
have turned her cheeks red. It didn’t seem to matter much now.
Shahai sat with her knees tucked against her chest. Daisetsu’s frenzied shadow moved along
the wall. He was going through everything, tucking some things into a small traveling pack he’d
seized from a servant’s quarters, tossing others aside into a “leave behind” pile. If she was to survive
this, she had to escape the Forbidden City. She had to run away.
It meant shaming her family. Humiliating her father. It would compromise the Unicorn at
court. Worst of all, running away was a violation of an Imperial edict. If she escaped, that would
sign her death warrant.
But she’d already done that, hadn’t she?
Daisetsu paused, considering two of her kimono. He discarded the silk one, the courtly one,
and packed the one made from hemp.
But even if she did escape, where could she go? Not back to the Unicorn. Not back to the
Iuchi! Her family would be forced to disown her, to turn her in. Nor could she hide in the city.
They’d all be looking for her there. If anyone recognized her, she would be killed on sight.
And with what she knew about Sotorii...

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 Yes, that made her quite dangerous to him, didn’t it? The Seppun would pursue her
anywhere. Other clans would seek her because capturing her meant earning Prince—no—Emperor
Sotorii’s favor. There was nowhere she could hide. She was finished.
And when she died, how would Emma-Ō judge her?
Daisetsu found her box of meishōdō talismans. Judging them important, he tucked them into
the traveling satchel. Good idea. She might not know the names of the kami where she was going,
and she’d need the ones resting inside those trinkets. It felt like ages since she’d learned the names
of the kami dwelling around the palace, crafted their unique trinkets, invoked their true names to
draw them inside...
Wait. But didn’t the palace have wards to protect the Emperor? To alert his guards? She’d
felt them—they were obvious to any shugenja. They should have come to life when the Emperor
was slain.
But what if the kami that she had gathered were the ones powering those wards? They were
in her meishōdō talismans awaiting tomorrow’s demonstration when they would be released. A
demonstration that now would never come. Without kami, any wards were just powerless runes.
Could she have undone the palace consecrations? But only temporarily. Just for one night.
What was one night? It should have been harmless.
Was all this her fault?
She swallowed a dry lump. No, she couldn’t think about that now. Sotorii was the one who
had slain his father. Even the kami’s presence would not have changed that.
She said nothing as Daisetsu finished packing. She’d be taking the kami with her, leaving
parts of the palace empty and without its elemental spirits. But what did that matter now that the
Emperor was dead? She’d release them later anyway. They’d find their way back to the Forbidden
City. The spirits always did.
But for now, she needed them.
“Done.” Daisetsu placed the traveling pack at her feet. “We’ve risked too much already. You
need to go now.”
“You should tell them,” she uttered through her knees. “What he did.”
He agreed. It was plain on his face, in his angry eyes. “What good would it do? One way or
another, it would be covered up to preserve the family name. To preserve the honor of the Hantei,
my father will never receive justice. Such is the cruelty of Bushidō.”

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 The cruelty of samurai, she heard herself think. She normally would have rejected such
thoughts, but now the cold words felt somehow comforting.
“This will be just another secret forgotten in the halls of the Forbidden City. One of
thousands. Nothing escapes.” He extended his hand. “Except for us. I know a way out. At least, I
think I do. We’ll have to risk it.”
She raised her head. “We?”
He was wearing her traveling coat. One of her satchels was slung around his neck. His long
hair was tied into a bun.
No. She couldn’t allow it. She sat up. “My prince, you can’t—”
“You said you would do anything, yes?”
She clenched her jaw. Yes. Anything.
His expression melted. “Then take me away from here. I cannot be here anymore.”
Her breath caught at the glistening of his eyes in the pale light. He seemed so frail just then.
So weak. His smooth face was like a child’s. It was easy to forget how young he was. That he hadn’t
even passed his gempuku. That his father was ancient, that his mother had long ago retreated into
her chambers and was almost never seen in public. Even surrounded by elders and guards, he’d
always been alone.
“This place is cursed,” he whispered. “How can I remain in the house where my father died?
Take me anywhere, so long as it is not here.”
That would be kidnapping. Kidnapping an Imperial heir. Endangerment of the royal lineage.
That’s what they would say, anyway. If any of the things she’d already done were not enough to kill
her, this certainly would do it.
His glistening eyes. His quiet hope.
She remembered his demon-like anger from before, the viper’s eyes. That had not been
Daisetsu. This place had done that to him. What would it do if she left him behind? Drowning in a
pond. Drowning in the ocean. What was the difference? Either way, she was dead.
“All right,” she said. And she instantly felt better knowing that she would not be alone.
Indeed, she couldn’t bear the thought of exile alone. Of leaving him behind.
She let him lead her from her room. They’d have to avoid all the guards, sneak to the foyer.
Maybe use the servant halls, although the guards would search there as well. And then what?

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 She looked back one last time. Among the pile of things she would abandon, the ceramic
bowl lantern. Inside, the ashes of the letter she was writing to her father.
Had that truly just been an hour ago? One hour prior, she was annoyed, writing to her father,
dreading the meishōdō lesson she owed in the morning. In one hour, the entire world had changed.
It wasn’t too late. She could stay. She could surrender. She could die. That was what Bushidō
demanded. That was the right thing to do.
But she didn’t want to do the right thing. She wanted to live.
“I’m sorry, Father,” she whispered. “I didn’t intend for this. I didn’t mean to betray you.”
She closed the door for the last time. “Forgive me, father.
“It must be the Yogo in me.”

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Hour of the Ox—The Plains Beyond Otosan Uchi

Hitomi slept lightly after the Army of the Rising Wave made camp in a field near—but not too
near—one of the petal villages ringing Otosan Uchi. She felt as though she hadn’t truly rested since
her force crossed the border of Dragon lands: taking an army through foreign territory, without
diplomats first paving the way, made her as wary as a cat in a hawk’s shadow. Approaching the
Imperial capital with that army...
It was her duty, and she was honored to perform it. But that didn’t stop her from wondering
what Lord Togashi was thinking.
Fortunately, Mitsu knew how to wake her safely. With Hitomi’s nerves primed for trouble,
she would have come up with a blade in hand if he hadn’t first murmured her name from a safe
distance away.
Dawn hadn’t yet bleached the walls of her tent, and the instincts of a soldier told her it was
some time after midnight. “Have the Imperial Legions arrived?” she asked. To bid them all surrender
or to kill them all for their audacity.
Mitsu shook his bald head. “No. It’s...”
Some of the ise zumi, Hitomi was convinced, deliberately cultivated an enigmatic air, just to
enhance the reputation of their order. But not Mitsu: he was, if anything, blunt to a fault. If he was
hesitating, he had good reason. “Bad news won’t get any better for delaying.”

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 “It isn’t that,” Mitsu said. “Rather—I’m not sure.” He was kneeling, hands serene on his
knees, but his gaze was troubled and distant in the light of his small lamp. “I couldn’t sleep. I thought
to calm myself with meditation, and I felt...”
Hitomi bit down hard, waiting. Grabbing his shoulders and shaking him might be satisfying,
but it wouldn’t make the words come any faster.
“Something is wrong,” Mitsu said. “I don’t know what. Not the Imperial Legions coming
for us—nothing so straightforward. A spiritual disturbance of some kind.”
She wondered which of his tattoos gave him that sense, or whether it was simply an inner
spiritual gift. Or nothing at all, she thought. Hitomi doubted she was the only one on edge. “I can’t
wake the soldiers for an undefined spiritual disturbance. And deploying them without first getting
permission from the Emperor or the Emerald Champion...”
No point in finishing that sentence. She wished they had moved just a little faster, so that
they arrived early enough for her to speak with Agasha Sumiko before the gates of Otosan Uchi
closed for the night. It would have meant exhausting her soldiers even more—but it would have
been worth it, to get the political dance started today instead of tomorrow.
If Mitsu wasn’t jumping at shadows, then tomorrow might be too late.
“Of course not,” Mitsu said. “I only woke you to give the warning, and to tell you I’m going
to the city. I might be able to find out more.”
Hitomi shot to her feet, not caring that she wore only a thin sleeping robe. Tattooed monks
went around half-naked anyway. “On your own? So courteous of you to let me know.”
Mitsu stood as well, grimacing. “That isn’t what I—look, the guards at the gate are more
likely to make an exception for me than for you. Or if I absolutely have to, I can get past them on
my own.”
Because he was the clan champion’s heir. And because people let ise zumi get away with
exceptions to all kinds of rules—even Imperial laws. “Togashi-ue placed me in command of this
army,” Hitomi reminded him, in a tone more often used toward bushi fresh out of their gempuku.
“This close to our objective, I am not about to let you go haring off on your own. If that was what
our lord intended, he would not have sent an army with us.” Nor placed me in command of it.
“But we can’t use the army!” Mitsu said. “Not yet. If I’m not back by morning, you can go
to Champion Agasha—”
“You have no authority to tell me what I can and cannot do.”

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 Fury drove the words out of her like a fist. Why Lord Togashi had chosen Mitsu as his heir
was beyond her: the man unquestionably had martial skill and a talent for talking to peasants, but
those were hardly the traits required of the Dragon Clan Champion. He was too used to operating
alone, without consulting anyone else, and for all that he claimed his decisions were always the
result of careful contemplation, she’d seen with her own eyes that sometimes he wasn’t careful
enough.
And if he acted rashly now, they might all pay the price for it.
For the briefest instant, she saw his hands tighten as if to form fists. If he’d struck at her, she
would have had him in chains a heartbeat later, heir or no heir.
But then his hands relaxed. “We were sent here to aid the prince,” Mitsu said quietly. “I can’t
swear that what I felt is some kind of threat to him—but hatamoto, I don’t believe either of us would
want to fail because we waited until morning to act.”
The use of her title mollified her. Which was undoubtedly why he’d done it, but still: it meant
he remembered her authority and her responsibility. Hitomi exhaled slowly, letting her own hands
fall limp. “No. Give me long enough to assemble a small escort, and we’ll go together. After all,
Togashi-ue sent us both.” Surely, he had reason.
Mitsu nodded. “While you do that, I’ll head to Hojize Gate and start talking the guards
around. That way we won’t waste any time.”
He might be reckless sometimes, but Hitomi didn’t think he was a liar. She let him go,
summoned her escort, and went on believing what he’d said right up until the point when she arrived
at the gate and found the pedestrian entry next to the massive main barrier hanging open.
Through that gap, she saw two guards lying unconscious.
Hitomi swore, using language she hadn’t employed since her own days as a student, and
called on all the Fortunes to curse Togashi Mitsu. He’d not only lied to her; he’d committed an
Imperial crime and left her with an impossible choice.
Follow him—committing her own crime in turn—or wait for dawn, and risk failing her
champion’s orders?
“Stay alert,” she said to her escort, settling her daishō on her hip. “Draw steel only if
attacked, or in defense of the Emperor or the prince. We don’t know what we’ll find.”
With her soldiers at her back, Hitomi entered Otosan Uchi.

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Mitsu couldn’t see perfectly in the predawn darkness, but he could see enough.
As he approached Otosan Uchi, he saw a patch of deeper shadow where the light of Lord
Moon ought to have continued unbroken across the face of the city wall. He saw the lack of
movement atop the wall, where guards ought to have been patrolling in the chill autumn night.
With his wolf tattoo sharpening his senses, he saw two guards lying unconscious just inside
the gate.
The open plain around the walls of the Imperial capital gave him nowhere to hide, but he
crouched low to reduce his profile and searched the area. No threats revealed themselves, and Mitsu
crept closer, sniffing the air. The breeze brought him dew-softened grass, the dust of the road, and
the inevitable medley of smells—not all of them pleasant—that accompanied a city.
And a fresh trail. Not large—only two people. Assassins?
If so, they had already accomplished their murder. The trail led across the open ground;
they’d knocked out the guards in order to leave the city, not enter it.
Mitsu stood perfectly still, like a duelist studying his opponent, preparing to strike. Aid the
prince. He and Hitomi might already be too late. Or this might be the moment for which Lord
Togashi had sent them.
But that didn’t tell him which way to go.
The gate stood unguarded, both at ground level and on the parapet above. Any loyal subject
of the Emperor should immediately raise the alarm.
Most loyal subjects of the Emperor, though, would not have Mitsu’s ability to track the
escaping pair. And delay might mean losing the trail entirely.
He drew a slow breath, releasing his tension so it would not cloud his judgment. Hitomi was
on her way with soldiers. She would be furious with him for vanishing, but she’d follow through in
the city. If the problem was there, she would find it.
Mitsu turned and followed the scent trail with the easy, loping stride of a wolf on the hunt.

It led him, not toward the fields and carefully tended woods around Otosan Uchi, but toward the
nearest petal village.
Two people, both in sandals, and one of them expensively perfumed. Shinobi wouldn’t wear
such scents and would have had horses waiting in a nearby wood. Unless this was an unplanned

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flight... and as the trail led Mitsu toward a stable on the outskirts of the village, he suspected more
and more that such was the case.
Faint noises drifted to his ears. The horses inside the stable were restless—not panicking,
but shifting about. Mitsu paused, releasing the energy of the wolf tattoo, and called upon the one
that spanned his back and shoulders. His hands shifted into claws. Soundless as a tiger on the hard-
packed dirt, he approached the stable, rounded its corner, and peered through the gap in the door.
Someone moved inside, bridling a horse. Mitsu’s vision was no longer sharp enough to
pierce shadows, but he could just make out the second figure, holding the reins of another horse and
waiting.
Mitsu could outrun any mount, but unless he meant to follow these two all the way to their
destination, he was better off confronting them now while they were still alone. In one swift move,
he tore the door open, flooding the stable with moonlight, and leaped forward.
Steel flashed up to meet him. The horses surged in alarm, and the smaller figure leapt to
catch their reins. Mitsu was about to hurl a bucket at the swordsman’s head and follow up with a
bone-crushing kick when he realized he knew that face: painfully young, white with desperation,
but still recognizably Imperial.
He skidded to a halt, bucket dangling from his claws. “Your Highness!”
It came out a wordless, feral growl, and Hantei Daisetsu raised his sword to strike. But the
young woman who’d been bridling the horse caught his arm, crying, “No! Wait!”
The tiger snarled for Mitsu to fight, but he had long since mastered his tattoos. He let go of
its power; his claws retracted, and speech returned. Mitsu dropped the bucket and knelt. “Your
Highness, what are you doing here?”
These were unquestionably the two he’d been following. But why would they be fleeing
Otosan Uchi in the middle of the night? Why would they disable the guards at the gate—and how?
Daisetsu lowered his blade to a guard position, but kept its point toward Mitsu. The young
woman at his side wore Unicorn-style traveling robes; that plus her youth suggested she was Iuchi
Shahai, the girl sent to teach meishōdō to the Seppun. Was she the one who had disabled the guards
with her foreign magics? If so, the Phoenix would scream so loudly they’d hear it in the Burning
Sands.
But those were all problems for later. Right now, Mitsu had an Imperial prince in front of
him... and orders from Lord Togashi. Travel to Otosan Uchi and aid the prince.

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 No details beyond that and an army. Mitsu had not yet experienced the foresight that blessed
the Champions of the Dragon Clan, but he knew how badly those visions taxed them in body and
spirit. The Lord of the High House of Light had undoubtedly shared everything he knew. The rest
was up to Mitsu and Hitomi.
“I’ve seen you before,” Daisetsu said, his voice hard like that of a boy trying to hide a tremor.
“You’re one of the ise zumi. Togashi Mitsu. Did your clan champion send you here to stop us? I
won’t let you.”
Shahai’s hand remained on Daisetsu’s arm, like she was soothing a nervous horse. “Many
from my family have married into the Dragon clan over the years,” she said. “He may be able to
help us.”
Mitsu and Hitomi had days to discuss it on the road. They’d agreed the prince they were
supposed to help was probably Sotorii, the future Emperor. But now here was Daisetsu, outside the
Forbidden Palace—outside the Imperial City entirely—in the middle of the night. Maybe we were
wrong.
“Has some trouble taken place within the palace?” Mitsu asked. The cadences of formal
speech weren’t something he used often, but they rose to his lips with the practiced ease of many
lifetimes. “Are you under threat of pursuit?”
Daisetsu laughed bitterly and sheathed his sword at last. “If they’ve noticed I’m gone, then
yes, probably.”
He was running away.
It stole the breath from Mitsu’s lungs, and the formality from his speech. “Your Highness—
what’s going on?”
The look Shahai gave Daisetsu was all too easy to read, but Mitsu doubted Lord Togashi had
sent him there just to help two teenagers elope. They conducted a wordless argument; then Daisetsu
set his jaw and said, “I’ve had enough, Togashi-san. Of—of all of it. The courtesy that’s just a mask
for poison, the ambition masquerading as duty, all the lies and stupidity and—and—”
His breath came faster, strangling his words. Shahai pressed her lips together, then faced
Mitsu and bowed. “We have not met, Togashi-sama, but I have heard stories about you. Your
compassion for those who often get trampled in the wars of others. Please—will you help us?”
“Help you do what?” Mitsu said.

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 “Get away.” Daisetsu suddenly crouched low, putting his face close to Mitsu’s without
letting his knee touch the ground. There was no supplication in his manner; he was an Imperial
prince and burning with the fire of determination. “I’m trying to find my own path, Togashi-san.
Surely you, as a Dragon—as an ise zumi— can understand that.”
It had the ring of musha shugyō, the warrior’s pilgrimage. But that was for adults who had
passed their gempuku, and Mitsu didn’t believe for a single instant that Daisetsu was fleeing with a
Unicorn hostage in the middle of the night simply because he wanted to seek greater understanding
by traveling the Empire.
Whatever Mitsu had felt while he was meditating must have something to do with Daisetsu’s
flight. He saw the signs of it in tightness of Daisetsu’s expression, the way Shahai’s hands had
slipped into her sleeves—as if reaching for an amulet, just in case.
But Mitsu wasn’t about to call the prince a liar. He might not have Lord Togashi’s foresight,
but he could see that future rolling out in front of him like a picture scroll: Daisetsu drawing steel,
Shahai calling on her meishōdō amulets, Mitsu facing the choice of whether to fight an Imperial
prince or let these two beat him to the ground.
He could hardly imagine Daisetsu running away with the entire Army of the Rising Wave
trailing after him, though. And the army was here for a reason. Choosing his words carefully, Mitsu
said, “Your Highness, I have traveled the Empire from one end to the other. There is great wisdom
to be found out there...but also far more danger than anyone in the Forbidden Palace would ever
admit, for fear of giving insult to the Son of Heaven. I would be happy to instruct you here, where
it is safer—”
Again, that bitter laugh. “You’re afraid I’ll get killed? What does it matter if I do? My destiny
is my own, not the Empire’s.
”Mitsu’s breath stopped. Not the Empire’s.
What if Daisetsu was wrong?
Aid the prince. He and Hitomi had thought they were to aid Sotorii, the future Emperor. But
younger sons had succeeded to the throne before, or brothers, because the twists of karma set them
on that path.
If that was what Tengoku intended, Daisetsu would need someone to protect him.
Mitsu had spent lifetimes learning to master not only his tattoos but his actions—and their
consequences. This future, though, was too complex for anyone other than the Order’s master to

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see, and maybe not even him. The Dragon Clan heir aiding a runaway Imperial prince and a Unicorn
hostage... Even the immediate consequences, the ones Mitsu could predict, would be difficult at
best.
No amount of foresight and contemplation could make a good solution emerge where none
existed. And in those situations, one still had to choose.
The army still troubled him, like a pebble in his sandal. Mitsu could have come to Otosan
Uchi far more easily on his own, and he didn’t believe the entire purpose of the Army of the Rising
Wave was to make him camp outside the city tonight and thereby be in position to intercept Daisetsu.
Surely there was more to it than that.
But the army was Hitomi’s anyway. And she was a Mirumoto: she would understand that,
when you had two swords, you used them both.
Mitsu bowed low, returning to formality once more. “I understand, your Highness. And I
hope you will understand that I cannot fail in my duty to my lord. Your companion is correct: I was
sent here to help you. And so I will travel with you.”

There was no chaos in the city, no screaming. Just a gate’s worth of unconscious Imperial
legionnaires, and a city sleeping, none the wiser.
Hitomi didn’t trust it. She kept her hands near her blades and moved as fast as she dared, not
wanting to attract attention by running through the nighttime streets. She’d long since come to terms
with the necessity of secrecy, sneaking an entire army through Lion and Crane lands to Otosan Uchi;
another li or so of hiding wouldn’t matter. She left her escort to hold the gate, though, with orders
to sound the alarm as soon as she was well clear.
It wouldn’t buy her much leniency, once the authorities here realized she’d entered the city
illegally. But right now, what mattered was getting to Agasha Sumiko. The Ruby Champion had no
authority to grant the army permission to camp outside Otosan Uchi, but as a fellow Dragon, she
could help them navigate the treacherous passes of court.
Her soldiers had other orders, too. Ones they would carry out if Hitomi failed to return.
At the wall marking the edge of the Forbidden Palace, she found a very different state of
affairs. The gate there was not only guarded, but held by far more people than seemed necessary.
Mitsu’s spiritual disturbance?

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 If so, the guards weren’t telling visitors. But her seal of command got her through the gate,
with a bushi to lead her to the residence of the Ruby Champion.
Hitomi hoped to find Mitsu there. The servant who greeted her denied having seen him,
though, and Hitomi cursed inwardly. Where in Jigoku has he gone?
Mitsu couldn’t be her concern right now. She had to stay focused on her own duties. Hitomi
expected Sumiko would be asleep, and she had prepared a speech of urgent apology. But when the
servant showed her into the Ruby Champion’s study, Sumiko was not only awake but dressed, and
had company: Kitsuki Yaruma, the Dragon Clan ambassador to the Imperial court.
It should have seemed like the providence of the Heavens, finding the two of them together
like this. But the tension in them both made Hitomi’s relief short-lived. “Mirumoto-sama,” Sumiko
said curtly as the servant departed. “I don’t know what business brings you here at this hour, but
this is not a good time—”
Hitomi knelt and bowed. “Agasha-sama. Togashi-ue sent me here with an army and orders
to aid the prince. Togashi Mitsu-sama woke me tonight with a warning of some disturbance he
sensed while meditating, and I saw signs of trouble on my way into the city. How can I serve?”
The silence that followed lasted long enough that Hitomi looked up. The mask of Sumiko’s
composure had cracked, and the bones of her face seemed to stand out like a skull. Yaruma stared
at Hitomi. “To aid... the prince.”
Her mouth went dry. “Are we too late?”
Sumiko braced her fingers against the mat, as if to steady herself. “The Emperor is dead.”
It struck like a Hida’s war hammer. Hitomi barely managed to say, “How?”
“His health has been bad for some time now. I imagine it took a turn for the worse... though
the Imperial Advisor has been slow to share any information.” Sumiko exchanged a bitter glance
with Yaruma, then took a deep breath, restoring her outward serenity. “But you say you were sent
to aid the prince, not the late Emperor. Did you mean the elder son, or the younger?”
“It is not clear,” Hitomi said slowly, trying to absorb the sudden shock. “Togashi-ue said
only the prince. I suppose there is only one prince now—the younger son. But at the time, there
were two, and I would think the Crown Prince—the Emperor—was the one more in need of help.”
“The kind of help he needs is beyond us all now.”
Acid and despair mingled in Sumiko’s voice and took Hitomi aback. “What do you mean?”

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 Sumiko passed a weary hand over her brow. “I had... concerns before. But it is not my place
to criticize the Son of Heaven. We can only do our best to advise him, and pray to the Fortunes that
it will be enough.”
She didn’t sound hopeful. Before Hitomi could think what to say, though, the door slid open
and the servant entered again, bowing low. “Agasha-sama, Bayushi no Sentaki Yūgiri-san is here,
bearing a message from the Imperial Advisor, Bayushi Kachiko-sama.”
Sumiko nodded. “Stay,” she said, when Hitomi would have excused herself. “You said
you’re here to help, after all.”
Hitomi knelt to one side, next to Yaruma. The messenger was a courtier in Scorpion robes,
his mask a simple affair of honey-dark silk. When the formalities were out of the way, he said, “On
this night of terrible news, please forgive me for bringing more. The Emerald Champion is missing,
as well as his official sword. We do not know what has become of him, but we know that the Empire
needs a champion. She has sent me to beg you to resume your previous duties as acting Emerald
Champion until the fate of Akodo Toturi-sama is known. Now of all times, the Empire cannot afford
to be without leadership.”
He delivered his message in the smooth tones of a practiced courtier and bowed to offer a
scroll. Hitomi’s hands curled into fists as Sumiko accepted the missive. The Emperor dead. Toturi
missing. Mitsu sensing trouble—is he chasing it, or did he fall afoul of it?
Sumiko only thanked the messenger and dismissed him, saying she would follow as soon as
she was ready. Not until he was gone did she fling the scroll aside with a curse. “Something is
extremely wrong.”
Yaruma’s mouth set in a grim line. “I saw Akodo Kaede-sama at the o-tsukimi gathering
earlier this evening. She looked... unwell. There may be even more going on than we realize.”
“I’m sure there is.” Sumiko rose to her feet. “Mirumoto-san, help me with my armor, and
tell me everything you know.”
It stood ready on a stand in the corner of the room. Hitomi began lacing the pieces onto
Sumiko as fast as she could, describing her orders, their journey to Otosan Uchi, and the unconscious
guards at the gate. “I thought that was Togashi-sama’s work,” she said, “but now I’m not so sure.”
If he was determined to enter the city without her, he had more subtle ways of doing that.
Yaruma said, “I’ll look into it.”

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 Hitomi finished her work and knelt once more in front of Sumiko, touching her forehead to
the mat. “Agasha-sama, I place my army at your disposal. I do not know what enemy we were sent
here to fight, but I am certain there will be one—that there is one. And once you identify it, we will
crush it without hesitation.” Mitsu would probably show up out of nowhere at the last moment to
do something dramatic, but in the meantime, Hitomi would prepare for battle.
“Good,” Sumiko said. “My first order as acting Emerald Champion is this: immediately
bring your soldiers into the city, and deploy them to guard the palace. I don’t know what’s going
on, and until I do, yours is the only force I can trust.”
Hitomi’s heart thudded like it was trying to leap free of her body. Guard the palace. In a
single stroke, the Army of the Rising Wave had gone from tiptoeing on the edge of treason to taking
responsibility for the new Emperor’s safety.
She took Sumiko’s daishō from their stand and offered the swords to her, first the wakizashi,
then the katana. Two blades: all bushi carried them, but only those trained by the Mirumoto used
both in tandem.
Hitomi knew her purpose. She could only pray to the Fortunes that Mitsu had found his.

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Most loyal retainer, keep this letter and its contents secret with your life.

Onnotangu looks down upon Otosan Uchi this night. Our most glorious Emperor, the Son of
Heaven, has joined his ancestors in Tengoku. He is at peace now, having grown old despite his
years. He may have prepared for his appointed time, but to our sorrow, it arrived quite unforeseen
to the rest of us. Yet our duty demands that we now step forward to serve the Crown Prince amid
his grief. The responsibility he bears will be a heavy weight upon his young shoulders, so it settles
upon his advisors and loyal vassals to provide the counsel and support that he requires.
It is known to many that the Emperor was soon to choose which of the Great Clans would
be the caretakers of his Ancestral Sword, Kunshu, until Hantei Sotorii’s coronation. Such will still
occur, and it is now of the greatest importance that the stewardship falls upon the Scorpion Clan.
Sotorii has always had a fondness for kenjutsu. Yet he is still young and fierce, blessed with strength
rather than restraint. Should another clan become its steward, they may give him unfettered access
to his family’s sword without further training and meditation. A wiser course would be to continue
the prince’s instruction while Kunshu is kept by the Yogo, whose wardmasters can safeguard such
a venerable artifact of Heaven.
There will be confusion as news of the Hantei’s ascendence to Tengoku makes its way
around the Forbidden City. Kakita Yoshi may try to lead the Empire as Chancellor until Hantei
Sotorii ascends the throne, perhaps even giving the stewardship of the Ancestral Sword to the Crane
on Sotoriis behalf in order to secure his own authority. With Daidoji Uji’s armies returning from
their former garrison at Toshi Ranbo and the spies that Yoshi-sama has spread throughout this

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blessed city, the machinations of the Crane cannot be ignored. We must clip their ornamented wings.
Watch for them, undermine their every effort, and be ready for an act of desperation once they
realize they cannot take what we have worked so hard to obtain.
As I attend to our late Emperor, your service is required. Observe our foes among the Crane
and Phoenix, who are most likely to oppose us when the caretaking of the Hantei lineage is decided.
Report on their movements and actions. If they send messages, intercept and destroy them. The days
to come will be trying for all of us. Keep close those you trust the most and allow only them into
your confidence. If you have any doubt, even your personal servants or bodyguards must be left
ignorant to the truth. The Scorpion Clan will only succeed if our loyalty stays strong.

Bayushi Kachiko,
Imperial Advisor and Lady of Whispers

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Hour of the Ox—The Imperial Court Chamber

Bayushi Shoju stepped onto the penultimate level of the Great Dais, but refrained from looking at
the Chrysanthemum Throne looming above him. Instead, he turned to look across the vast court
chamber. The immense sweep of floor, dark stone polished almost mirror-bright, gleamed with light
pooled beneath the few lanterns still kept lit at this late hour. Ponderous gloom enveloped the rest.
It was meant to be awe-inspiring—this locus of Imperial power—and it was.
But a component of awe was fear, and Shoju was, indeed, afraid.
The critical business of the Empire happened in this place. Petitions were presented and
debated...schemes were advanced or thwarted...wars were declared. Thousands of lives could turn
on a handful of words spoken here—especially those uttered from the massive throne behind him.
But such words were not the source of his fear. He was the Champion of the Scorpion Clan;
his own words could shape or end lives. No, Shoju’s fear arose from... Something else.
He looked into his left hand. Two small stones, pieces from a game of Go, sat in his palm.
Both were jade—one so darkly green, like ancient mountain pines, to be almost black; the other as
white as winter sun on snow. The white stone had been the final stone the Emperor had played in
their aborted game earlier that day, in the Imperial Gardens. The black had been his own, his
intended response to the Emperor’s stone, but never played.
What am I afraid of?
He closed his fist. The answer was simple. He was afraid of the future that would begin here,
in this place, in the morning. The edict announcing the Emperor’s abdication, naming Daisetsu as

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his heir, and Shoju as Sesshō, Imperial Regent, would be proclaimed here. The future as Shoju had
believed he understood it would change... No. It would end once that edict was read, and a new
future would begin. It was as though, in the midst of a game of Go, the rules and even the objective
had suddenly changed, leaving no way of knowing how the game would progress.
But this was no game. This was the future of Rokugan. And the sudden, yawning uncertainty
about it made Shoju afraid.
He finally turned to the throne. A pillar to the left of it was inscribed, “Revere heaven, love
people.” A pleasant enough assertion, but devoid of any real weight. The pillar to the right, though,
read, “All is right with the world.” Shoju frowned at this, a statement presented as a certainty,
because all was certainly not right with the world—
He froze. Someone had entered the court chamber, their sandals beating a soft cadence on
the polished stone. Shoju’s left hand tensed toward his wakizashi, but it still held the Go stones...
He relaxed as he recognized the gait of the person approaching.
His gaze still on the throne, he said, “It must be urgent business that brings you here, my
wife, at such a late hour.”
The footsteps stopped at the base of the dais, but Bayushi Kachiko said nothing and Shoju
finally turned.
Kachiko made no move to ascend the dais, even though her office as Imperial Advisor at
least technically gave her more justification to stand upon it than him. Instead, she bowed. But the
movement—her entire manner—had a perfunctory tension, an uncharacteristic hardness to her
usual, fluid grace.
“I must speak to you, my lord,” she said. “It is...important.”
“Very well.”
“I would prefer that we speak elsewhere, my lord. What I must discuss with you is a matter
of... considerable sensitivity.” She gestured toward one of the many side rooms opening off the court
chamber.
Thousands of lives could turn on a handful of words spoken on that mirrored floor...
Shoju descended the dais and walked with Kachiko to the nearest side room, sliding the door
closed behind them. No delicate paper construct, this door was thick rosewood, richly carven and
elegant—and, like the room itself, proof against the passage of sound. Court delegates could come

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here, away from the great chamber, and discuss things they didn’t wish overheard. That Kachiko
wished to speak here...
When she turned to face him, Shoju saw it etched in her face, portrayed in her every
movement, every nuance of her body language. Heard it, in the uncharacteristic hesitation in her
voice.
Like him, Kachiko was afraid. And angry. And there was a hint of... anticipation? But what
had she to fear that would bring her here at this hour?
Kachiko moved to the far side of a long table of polished rosewood that matched the door.
Sumptuous cushions surrounded it, but she remained standing, assembling the words she was about
to say. It was only a momentary pause, barely of note—if this was anyone else. But this was Bayushi
Kachiko, who could assemble an entire arsenal of lies in the time it took a lesser person to draw a
breath. Shoju wanted whatever unpleasant truth had brought her here revealed for what it was, not
portrayed as she wanted it to be. So he preempted her, speaking first.
“Something troubles you, my wife.”
He saw her artfully crafted words crumble behind her eyes. This was unlike her, too. Shoju
was one of very few in Rokugan who could even hope to match wits with Kachiko... but it should
not be this easy. Apparently giving up on speaking, she instead settled on extracting a rolled
document from her obi and offered it to Shoju.
He accepted it in his right hand, allowing the mulberry paper to unroll under its own weight.
His left remained clenched around the Go stones as he read the script, penned in a precise hand he
recognized as Akodo Toturi’s.
An edict...
...will step down from the Throne...
...Prince Daisetsu, the Thirty-Ninth Hantei Emperor of Rokugan...
...will ascend as Emperor under the guidance of a regent, the esteemed Champion of the
Scorpion Clan...
Behind Kachiko’s mask lay anger, anticipation and... something else.
His left hand tightened, the Go stones becoming two bright spots of pain. “How did this
come to be in your possession?”
Kachiko’s gaze dipped almost imperceptibly. “It was retrieved from the body of the
Emperor.”

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 The body of...
The Emperor was dead?
Shoju opened his hand, looked at the Go stones, and recalled the Emperor’s words from...
what, only a few hours earlier?
That stone I played, whether its placement was wise or foolish, was the last I shall ever play
on it. This game is now yours, Shoju-san.
He tucked the Go stones into a small pocket inside his obi.
“My lord?”
Shoju looked at Kachiko. He had no idea how long he’d been standing in silence.
“My lord,” Kachiko said, “if you require time—”
“No. Tell me everything you know.”
Kachiko hesitated, then began speaking. She described regicide in a way that seemed almost
matter-of-fact, like a recitation from some historical treatise of the Ikoma. Indeed, in some future
time, this would all be just historical fact, names and places, events and times dutifully recorded in
dry, scholarly script. It wouldn’t convey the appalling horror of the Crown Prince of Rokugan
murdering his father, the Emperor, with the ancestral Hantei blade.
Kachiko fell silent, her awful tale complete.
Except it wasn’t. Her eyes, darkly framed by her mask, contained further words. Shoju said
nothing and simply waited.
Kachiko finally said, “I am sorry, my...husband. I know the Emperor was your friend.”
She had been about to say my lord, but changed it to my husband. Had she had been anyone
else, Shoju would have known the motive behind it—whether genuine concern for his feelings or
manipulative calculation.
Had she been anyone else.
But she was still afraid. Why? What could be worse than this?
Jodan was dead. Killed by his own son, the Crown Prince of Rokugan, on the very eve of
this edict’s proclamation.
Standing before the Chrysanthemum Throne, he had been afraid of the future. But now the
Emperor was dead—murdered. Where was Sotorii now? Where was Daisetsu?

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 As the edict dictated, now Daisetsu would take the throne with Shoju as Regent. What could
they do with Sotorii? How would this appear to the Empire? Would the Empire even believe the
edict? Or would they think it a plot, a scheme, an attempt by the Scorpion to seize power—
Where was Toturi?
And what was Kachiko’s role in this disaster? What still worried her?
To arrest the flood of thoughts, Shoju closed his eyes, and then seized on the most urgent
thread. “Where is Sotorii?”
“He is under guard,” Kachiko replied, “in his chambers.”
Shoju took a long, slow breath and let it out. “Very well. He will be held accountable, of
course.” He looked at the edict. “The Emperor was correct. Prince Sotorii will not succeed him.
Prince Daisetsu will be the new Hantei.”
Kachiko shifted, her demeanor becoming more open as she prepared to speak, but somehow
also more closed and wary.
This is what she is afraid of—whatever she is about to say to me.
“There are...alternatives, my husband.”
Shoju’s thoughts went abruptly still as a pond. Eyes still on the edict, he asked, “What do
you mean?”
“I spoke to Sotorii when I found him and... the terrible thing he had done. He understands
the reality facing him. He knows the throne cannot be his. Unless...” Kachiko took a breath. “Unless
the Empire hears that its Emperor has ascended to his righteous place in Tengoku only because it
was his time to depart the mortal realm.”
Shoju looked up from the edict. “What are you suggesting?”
Kachiko’s voice became suddenly hard, sharp with anger. “Why did you not tell me about
the Emperor’s intent? About that edict you hold? Why would you keep such a thing from me?”
He understood her fear, now. And these words explained her anger. That left... anticipation?
“Because, I chose to honor the Emperor’s wishes in this,” he said. “Clearly, though, you do
not feel that was justified or even wise.” He pushed his gaze into hers. “Why?”
Kachiko paced two steps. “Something so important, so... profound, for the Empire and our
clan! How can you not see that this is a thing I should have known! Do you not trust me? How could
you not? Even Hotaru would trust me enough to—”

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 Frozen silence fell at the end of Kachiko’s words. Shoju saw the stunned look on her face,
her horrified realization of what she had just said. Bayushi Kachiko did not lose control, ever. And
yet, she just had.
“I trusted you,” Shoju said, “enough to accept your relationship with the Crane Champion.”
Before she could even consider replying, he went on, “But neither that, nor the fact that I did not
tell you about this edict is the issue here. You have said something, or done something, which you
believe would have been affected by your knowing. What?”
Kachiko tried to lash back, desperate to snatch back a glimmer of control. “If I am to be
effective, to function as your—”
“What have you done, Kachiko? Why would you suggest lying to the Empire about the death
of its Emperor?”
Kachiko paced two steps back to where she’d started, then pointed at the edict, still in his
right hand.
“I had no knowledge of that,” she said. “If I had...” She stopped and shook her head. “But I
didn’t. So I seized the moment, my lord, for the good of the Empire and, yes, of the Scorpion. If
Sotorii were to inherit the throne following the death of his father, the Empire would naturally accept
it. He is the Crown Prince, after all.” She took a step toward Shoju now, getting as close as the table
would allow. “And then, throughout his reign, he would be indebted to us. Through him, we—you—
could do the things that need to be done to make the Empire whole and strong. He is a fool, of
course, but you could—”
Shoju strode around the table. It had, of course, been only a psychological barrier, not a
physical one. As he did, he swept a short, wicked knife from where he kept it concealed and pressed
the blade to Kachiko’s throat.
“What did you say to Sotorii?”
“My lord, please—!”
“What did you say to him?”
Kachiko winced. In this instant of fury, she probably saw his brother, Aramoro, in him. He
didn’t care... even hoped so.
A fraction more pressure, and she bleeds. A fraction more than that... and she dies.
Kachiko swallowed. Shoju felt it through the knife. “I told him that he could still ascend as
Emperor. I did not know about the edict! If I had—!”

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 “If you had, you would not now be putting your wishes above those of your Emperor? You
would not have then sought to blackmail the new Emperor to do your bidding? Only knowledge of
this edict would have been sufficient to keep you from putting such things into motion? Is that what
you are saying, my wife?”
Kachiko reeled under Shoju’s words. He still did not care. And now there was blood on her
neck where the blade dimpled the porcelain-smooth skin...a bead of crimson. Another.
Kachiko swallowed again. “The Empire is in deep distress, my lord. The Emperor was
correct. Sotorii was not fit for the throne. Daisetsu may be more worthy, but once he comes of age,
your regency will end. Think of the choice. A certainty of the power to shape Rokugan’s fate for the
full reign of Sotorii, and against that, a brief regency, followed by the possibility of influencing the
Empire’s future. As I said, there are alternatives, my lord. My husband.”
Shoju held Kachiko’s gaze locked to his. Fear, anger, anticipation. He understood them all
now. He thought back to Kachiko’s words as they had strolled in the Imperial Gardens that spring,
but now it seemed that years had passed since they were spoken.
...many Hantei emperors have come and gone...None have enjoyed the favor of heaven as
clearly as the first...and this one, the thirty-eighth—
And he had replied, Your words are becoming dangerous, my wife, if you are suggesting that
the Celestial Heavens have withdrawn their favor from this Hantei.
She had demurred, but that was exactly what she had meant, before going on to hint at him
someday taking the throne. Her fear and anger, her anticipation...Her ambition. He understood it all.
For the first time, Shoju understood Kachiko. Understood her completely.
He released her and returned the knife to its sheath. “You are wrong. There are no
alternatives.” He raised the edict. “There is only this. The Emperor’s final wish...His final command.
Toturi will proclaim this today, as planned.”
Kachiko simply nodded, the beads of blood bright against her neck. “As you wish,” she said,
striving to shape her voice back into its accustomed, neutral self. “I will speak to Kakita Yoshi and
Akodo Toturi and make arrangements for court to be convened as early as possible.”
Shoju nodded in turn, and Kachiko moved toward the door. She stopped with her hand upon
the carven handle and looked at her husband. “I could have destroyed the edict, Shoju. But I did not.
I brought it to you.”
“Which is the only reason you are not now being dragged to Traitor’s Grove.”

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 Kachiko’s eyes widened, but they remained locked on his. In them, Shoju saw a truth that
he knew they both understood... that they may still be husband and wife, but in every other way that
mattered, they’d become strangers to one another. The future, as Shoju had believed he understood
it, had indeed ended, and something new had begun.
Kachiko slid the door open and they left the secretive little room. Shoju turned his back on
Kachiko and moved back toward the foot of the dais.
Behind him, Kachiko stopped.
“My lord,” she said, “there is one other matter. Prince Daisetsu is not in his chambers.”
Shoju stopped and lifted his eyes to the throne. “Have him found and brought here. He must
be present when the edict is proclaimed.”
Silence.
Shoju turned.
“As I said, my lord,” Kachiko said, “we have not yet found him. Nor do we yet know all of
Sotorii’s movements and actions tonight.”
Shoju said nothing.
Kachiko walked forward, stopping only paces away from her husband. Blood dried darkly
on her neck, but she had already reclaimed much of her confident grace. She gestured at the edict.
“As you said, it was the Hantei’s final wish was that you rule until an Emperor can sit upon
the throne.”
“As regent.”
“Rokugan’s welfare cannot turn on a title, my lord. The Empire cannot survive if it does not
have leadership.” She glanced up at the throne, and then back at Shoju. “As you said, there are no
alternatives.”
Shoju looked around the court chamber. It might be the locus of Imperial politics, but those
politics happened only to serve the Empire. The plots, schemes, and policies conceived within this
court touched the towering Wall of the Crab, desperately fighting an implacable foe made of
nightmares... the ravaged lands of the Crane, struggling just to feed their people... the remote
mountains of the Dragon, who wrestled with insidious blasphemy even as their children became
ever fewer.
He turned and climbed the dais, this time to its topmost level. He imagined Sotorii sitting
upon this throne as Kachiko had advocated, pampered to distraction, little more than a bunraku

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puppet, with Shoju himself working the strings. As soon as he’d formed the image in his mind,
though, another appeared—that of Hantei Jodan, his Emperor and friend, who trusted him with an
Empire.
What would Jodan have wanted? Shoju could cleanse the stain of regicide from the Hantei
line by sending Sotorii off in exile, taking his violent act with him. Yet that would doom his soul
forever.
There had been few Sesshō in the Empire’s history. Those who had been so appointed all sat
upon the throne during the course of their regencies, moving aside only when the rightful Emperor
had truly ascended. Shoju had resolved not to do so, believing it needlessly presumptuous.
But that had been before the Emperor had been murdered by his own son. Before a spiritual
stain had fallen over the Hantei dynasty. Before his own wife had proposed blackmailing the new
Emperor into compliance with their wishes.
Before the future he thought he understood had ended, and a new, frightening one had begun.
And at that future’s center, the Scorpion Clan.
Bayushi Shoju sat upon the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Far below him, Kachiko bowed deeply.
Shoju looked at his hands resting on the great dragons carved into the throne’s emerald
arms... then immediately stood. “Prince Daisetsu must be found,” he insisted, “and brought here
before the opening of court.”
Kachiko straightened. “Of course, my lord.” Did she smile slightly when she bowed again?
Her footsteps faded as she withdrew.
I am sure you will find no lack of opponents, both old and new, the Emperor had said.
Of that, your Imperial majesty, he had replied, I have no doubt.
Shoju watched Kachiko until she was gone, then turned back to the throne. Extracting the
Go stone he had never played from his obi, he placed it on the great seat.
“I have done as you asked, my old friend. I have made my move.”
He descended the dais. Although his duty was clear, his soul would never again be free of
that touch of polished emerald.

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Hour of the Tiger—A House in Otosan Uchi

Akodo Toturi dragged himself up a long tunnel of darkness, toward a distant light. The black walls
scraped at him—jabbing him with jagged shards of pain—but he pulled himself doggedly along,
determined to reach the brightness above. Finally, it widened, a point of light becoming a circle,
pushing the dark constriction of the tunnel away—
“Toturi?”
The voice hummed out of the light. He thought he should recognize it, but all that mattered
was reaching it, escaping from the confining blackness...
“Toturi...can you hear me?”
Light blossomed all around him as he opened his eyes. It made him wince and blink. A face
appeared over him, dimming the light as it opened its mouth. The eyes that met his...
“Kaede?”
He winced again, his voice a raw scratch at the back of his throat.
“Do not attempt to move,” she said. “You have been severely injured. We have tried our best
to tend your wounds, but even with the kami aiding in your healing, you must rest.”
Rest. Yes...The tunnel began to close back in—
A streak of pain shot through his center. His wound. A sword. A shinobi.
Over Kaede’s protests, Toturi levered himself to his elbows and looked around, forcing
himself to see beyond the dull flares of pain, the aching throb in his head, and assess his situation.
He expected to see chaos, the immediate aftermath of battle, but saw, instead, a tidy room, small
and nondescript. He looked at Kaede.
“Where are we?”
“Safe, my lord,” a new voice said. Kitsuki Kāgi stepped into view through an open door that
revealed another room beyond, simple and domestic, a lantern glowing softly over a steaming tea
service. “This is one of several safe-houses we maintain in the city against... well, eventualities such
as this one.”
“We brought you here,” Kaede said, “as soon as you could be safely moved.”
Toturi gathered himself and sat upright, wincing and groaning and ignoring Kaede’s
renewed objections as he did. Bandages swathed his chest and arm. The wounds beneath them

531
burned, but dully, as though they were many days old. He flexed arms and hands, satisfied that,
although weakened, they were still functional.
“Very well,” he said. “Perhaps this is a good time for you to tell me what happened, then.”
Kaede glanced at Kāgi. Toturi’s chief yoriki returned a grim nod.
Toturi frowned at his wife. Weakly, he managed, “What? What is going on?”
A pause. He waited.
“About the attack on you, my husband, we know little. We only know that you were nearly
killed, but you survived, despite the best efforts of your attackers.”
“Whoever they were,” Kāgi added. “We have not yet had the opportunity to pursue that
particular matter.”
Toturi looked from one to the other as they spoke, stopping with his gaze on the yoriki. They
had brought him to a safe house... and had not yet been able to begin investigating an attack on the
Emerald Champion. Why?
“Something else has happened,” Toturi whispered. “Tell me.”
It was Kaede who spoke, “The Emperor is dead.”
Toturi just stared at her.
The Emperor was...?
“Reports continue to come back from the Palace,” she went on, “but we know still little of
substance. We know only that the Son of Heaven is dead. I... I believe I felt it.” Kaede glanced again
at Kāgi, then back to Toturi. “We fear that whoever sought to have you killed may have succeeded
in a similar attempt against the Emperor.”
Too slow, my lord Lion. The voice had been familiar, but as he tried to focus his memory,
his vision swam and his thoughts spun. He had to plant a hand on the futon to steady himself. It
must have been a shinobi, that was certain. But whose?
“Truly, Kaede?”
If it were true, the Emperor, whom he had sworn to protect with his life, was dead. Toturi
had failed.
Kaede remained silent and still.
Kāgi slid the door closed, leaving them alone.
For a while, Toturi said nothing. He looked about the room. There was no sign of his daishō
or the sword of the Emerald Champion. Had they, too, been lost in his folly?

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 A bleak darkness spilled over him. Since the day his brother, Arasou, had died by Doji
Hotaru’s arrow before the gates of Toshi Ranbo, he had made choices that he’d thought were correct,
or at least the best he could given the situation. And they had all led here, to this moment of utter
failure.
After Arasou’s death, Hotaru had written to him. In her letter, she had said, I know you to be
level-headed, wise, and honorable, so I trust that you will take the best course of action.
“Your thoughts have wandered into dark places, my husband,” Kaede said. “Please, do not
walk them without me.”
“If I walk in darkness, it is because my path has taken me there, Kaede. Yours has not.”
She leaned forward, placed her hands on his face and turned his head so he looked into her
eyes. “You do not understand, my beloved. Your path is my path. Now, more than ever.”
...I trust that you will take the best course of action...
Toturi winced as he reached up and gently pulled her hands away. “I am sorry, my wife. I
have failed. In my duty to the Empire, to my clan... and to my family. I have failed. Where I must
walk now, you cannot follow.”
Tears glistened in Kaede’s eyes. “No...”
It could be no other way. “We must each do our duty.”
“I have already lost my father. I cannot...” She stopped and touched her belly. “We cannot
lose you as well.”
Toturi ignored his hurts and gathered his wife in his arms. “I’m afraid you already have, my
love. But...not yet. Not just yet.” He could hold her for just a little while longer.

533
Bayushi Shoju found himself once more before the Great Dais. The tiniest specks of dust lay on the
Chrysanthemum Throne, its maintenance forgotten in the haste of funerial preparations—an ashen
tribute to the absence of Jodan, Son of Heaven, thirty-eighth Hantei Emperor, now ascended to
Tengoku’s celestial realm.
He touched the armrest of the throne, half hoping to feel the calm, wise spirit of his old friend
resting there. It was lifeless.
Farewell, Jodan, Son of Heaven, friend of the Scorpion. You have given everything to serve
Rokugan, and I shall continue to sacrifice for it.
But Shoju’s next sacrifice would be his wife.
Kachiko’s treason burned in his mind like a canker. He had always allowed her to do as she
pleased. He had trusted in her skill, her insight, her command over others—even in her careful
dalliance with Hotaru.
Theirs had not been a marriage of love, convenience, or station. Theirs had been a marriage
of power. He, a ferocious strategic mastermind, and she, a brilliant political architect. As the two
most formidable Scorpion born in the last generation, they had been joined by their clan in the hope
that their combined strength would raise the Scorpion like a hidden wave to its apex in the Empire.
She had become the Emperor’s advisor. He had become the Emperor’s choice for Imperial regent.
Together, they were supposed to champion the Scorpion Clan’s role as the Underhand to the
Emperor, to act in the shadows to preserve the honor of Heaven, to rid the Empire of unseen enemies,
to protect the Hantei dynasty from behind the Chrysanthemum Throne...

534
 But now the throne sat empty. Jodan had prepared for that eventuality with Shoju, but
Kachiko had acted rashly, forsaking all that they, together, had accomplished.
I underestimated her ambition.
He traced the tapestry of her impressive career in his mind. Her alliances, her triumphs at
court, her relationship with the Emperor himself. She had even surrounded herself with those who
recklessly followed her, blind to her mistakes, lost in their love of her, like Aramoro. All of it fed
her thirst for independent dominion, eventually exceeding her sense of duty.
Could I have foreseen the unwise paths she would take?
His reverie dredged up a memory of many years ago, when he and Kachiko had been first
married, before either of them had a fixed place at court. Aramoro had presented a newly widowed
Yogo Asami to the Scorpion Clan Champion, a woman near perfect in likeness to Kachiko’s beauty
and trained in the Shosuro school of impersonation. Aramoro argued that Asami’s similarities to
Lady Kachiko would be an invaluable tool for their clan. Despite his suspicions of his brother’s
motives, Shoju had accepted Aramoro’s scheme on behalf of the Scorpion, knowing a body double
would provide Kachiko added influence and capability in the weave of court intrigue. His wife had
politely thanked her brother-in-law for the strategic boon, but her eyes had flashed with aspiring fire
upon seeing the girl. With a small smile stretching from deep inside a selfish part of her soul, she
had said, “With this gift, Aramoro-san, you give me the freedom to do what I will.”
Her words now haunted Shoju, and he could feel his frown pucker up against the lacquered
wood of his mempō. She should have said “to do Heaven’s will.” In the moment, so long ago, he
had mistakenly interpreted her words to imply her intentions toward the Scorpion, Rokugan, and
her duty. He had not suspected she longed only for autonomy.
Now, for her treason, their clan had forgotten its purpose.
And for that, Shoju must punish her.
“Good morning, Bayushi-sama,” a strong voice called from behind him. Shoju exhaled the
bitter regrets and turned to face Agasha Sumiko, the one who would make him regent.
The acting Emerald Champion still wore her Ruby Champion’s ceremonial armor, though
some Otomo had tied a green stone chrysanthemum amulet of rank about her neck to signify her
hasty promotion. A nervous twinge rested in her bottom lip, yet her eyes were sharp with the clarity
of her duty despite its literal weight around her neck. She bowed deeply, and he returned her
greeting.

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 Sumiko held out a scroll toward him with a firm hand. The edict. “The Imperial scribes have
confirmed that this was written in Toturi’s calligraphy,” she reported, “and it had indeed been
officially sealed by the Emperor himself. Thus, I can legally deliver it at court as the late Emperor’s
last wishes.”
She hesitated ever so slightly, waiting for him to take the scroll, but he remained still, dark
eyes locked on hers. He knew Sumiko well, having studied her personality and potential long before
she had risen to her own position of power, but this accidental turn of events shifted everything. If
his own wife had erred, anyone was likely to change their ways. He waited, letting her make another
move, watching her body language for clues into her mind. He would not act until he knew where
they stood.
His silence unnerved her, and her eyes narrowed a fraction. She shifted her weight back,
settling into a defensive stance, and she tucked the edict into her sleeve.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, powering through the awkwardness though it increased the
worried creases around her mouth, “the Seppun have acknowledged Akodo Toturi-sama’s
disappearance and likewise insist that Prince Daisetsu is nowhere to be found.” She paused, but
when he said nothing, she lifted her chin petulantly. “I had hoped that you, as future regent and
husband to the Emperor’s advisor, would have an explanation for what is happening.”
“Is that an accusation of me or my wife?” he countered, his disciplined voice void of
emotion.
Sumiko steeled her face, propriety masking her blatant suspicion, though her eyes grew cold.
“No,” she said. “However, as acting Emerald Champion on Toturi-sama’s behalf, I must know all
that you know.”
Shoju tucked his arms into his sleeves. She had keen senses, but he could not let her mistrust
thrive. He needed the Ruby Champion on his side if he was to perform the role Jodan required of
him now. With a hidden sneer, he adopted his wife’s diplomatic craft.
Truth forms no alliances. All bridges are artifice.
“Lady Kachiko has been preoccupied with overseeing the purification of the late Emperor’s
body and his funeral preparations, so she knows almost nothing of the disappearances. She did see
the lady Kaede leave the Harvest Moon gathering early, as if ill, but Seppun Ishikawa reported he
found the Emerald Champion suites vacant, both of guard and occupant. He can only guess that
Toturi-sama and his wife left the city. Untimely, perhaps, but not illegal.”

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 Anger rumbled in his heart at the thought of Toturi’s disappearance. It had the slight shadow
of Kachiko’s involvement. His disappearance—perhaps even demise—only lengthened the list of
her indiscretions. Toturi was a loyal and sensible servant of the Emperor, focused on the honor of
the approach just as much as the honor of the outcome. Those simple Lion principles made him easy
to predict and therefore trust for Shoju’s planning. He would need to approach Sumiko with a
different strategy.
But Sumiko’s face remained smooth, her opinion almost unreadable, though her voice
dipped slightly, as if annoyed. “It is, of course, his right as Emerald Champion to go where and
when he pleases. But given the circumstances, I find it surprising that Toturi-sama would choose to
be anywhere but here. He should be the one to present the Emperor’s final edict and declare the new
heir.”
Shoju dared to extend a hand of sympathy. “It is fortunate, then, that Toturi-sama has such
an accomplished second who can assume his duties in these difficult times.”
The Ruby Champion lifted her chin again in defiance. She did not yet accept him as Imperial
regent. Perhaps she even suspected him of being involved in the disappearances, despite the contents
of the edict.
“On the subject of the prince,” Shoju continued, “several guards reported last seeing Prince
Daisetsu in the company of Iuchi Shahai. In their search, they found a smashed meishōdō trinket in
a tea room frequently used by the princes.”
The Ruby Champion shook her head. “A fallen emperor, a missing prince and Emerald
Champion, rumors of meishōdō... The declaration of the Imperial edict will only add to the chaos.”
Shoju nodded. “Shrewd observation. What do you propose we do?”
Sumiko’s balance shifted, her stance tilting into an offensive pose. An odd attitude, unless
she already had a clear course of action. Shoju did not sink into defense. Instead, he withdrew his
hands from his sleeves, fingers balled into fists.
“You have already taken measures, then,” he said.
“Yes,” the Ruby Champion said, the green chrysanthemum at her throat gleaming. “I have
ordered the Army of the Rising Wave to enter the city to keep the peace and protect the palace.”
Shoju almost growled. He knew that the approaching Dragon army had snuck closer to the
Imperial capital, a tiger stalking between herds of cattle, but he had no idea Sumiko would be so

537
bold as to invite them directly into the Forbidden City. A daring move for a leader whose promotion
was only a few hours old.
This Dragon is flexing her new Emerald claws. Does she truly suspect my involvement? Is
her army a show of force against an alleged Scorpion insurgence?
But Shoju drew back his temper, studying the Ruby Champion’s bold jaw and clear eyes.
Sumiko was no Lion, deploying legions with wild fury to defend against a perceived dishonor. She
accused no one, yet she did not discard distrust of the Scorpion. She was merely testing the waters,
baring her teeth while doing so. In that move, he could see the fine lines of her principles emerge.
She is cautious but not hesitant. She favors fairness, stability, and order. Those are easy
states to conjure, but her wariness of the Scorpion requires soothing.
“Do you disapprove of the Dragon taking command of the city?” Sumiko’s sharp gaze
attempted to study him behind his mempō, the news of her martial confrontation prodding him to
garner a response. Shoju took a step toward the throne, feigning a symbolic retreat in the face of her
military advance. She took her own step forward.
A Dragon’s compulsive need for balance. Her actions meted out to match my own.
Dependence, then, in the place of trust. If we appear to need her, then she shall act to meet our
needs. And if she in turn needs us...
“Your actions were insightful, Champion,” Shoju said, tucking his arms behind his back in
a sign of casual approval of her actions. “The Army of the Rising Wave will surely keep the peace
should matters become difficult. However, tell your forces that in their new posts, they should expect
nothing less than war.”
Surprise quivered across Sumiko’s face, and her bold composure collapsed.
Instability breeds reliance.
“War?” she gasped. “Why would you think that?”
He smiled at her naïveté but refrained from striking at her weakness.
And thus, we build our bridge, Sumiko.
“War is the inevitable end that always looms before us, Champion,” he answered. “As an
Empire built upon the strength of its samurai, friction between Rokugan’s Great Clans has been
building for some time. That is why the Emperor, in his wisdom, set things in motion that would
further prevent it after his death—at least for another generation.” He nodded at the edict in her

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sleeve, and she subconsciously gripped it with an anxious hand. “Our role as his servants is to live
by the guidance of Heaven’s wisdom. Together, we must mete out Celestial intent.”
She turned from him to stare at the Emerald Throne. Doubt still creased her mouth, but her
duty called her to act in the name of her Emperor, the Emperor who asked that the Emerald
Champion sustain Shoju.
“Yes,” she mumbled almost to herself. “The late Emperor was wise in his Heavenly calling.
Above the reproach of mortals.”
Sumiko regained her composure, squaring her shoulders to stand taller than Shoju.
“Then, as acting Emerald Champion in Akodo Toturi’s absence,” she said, turning her clear
eyes back to Shoju, “I shall support your regency in honor of the Emperor’s final wishes and
obedience to the legitimacy of his decree. The Army of the Rising Wave is at your disposal.” She
bowed again, confirming her words with the obeisance of her body.
Her action for my need. Balance and order.
“I thank you for your support, Champion. I trust you to help me protect the throne until
Prince Daisetsu can take his rightful place upon it. Tomorrow, after the edict’s delivery at court, we
will need to garner the support of the other Great Clans. I intend to start with the Crab. My first
command as regent will be to give them control of the jade mines in Toshi Ranbo to support their
fight against the Shadowlands. This should show the emissaries in the Imperial Court that we intend
to maintain Rokugan as the Emperor would have done.”
“I shall see to its legal transfer tonight as I organize the edict’s delivery at court tomorrow,”
Sumiko replied. “Should Prince Sotorii publicly abdicate his claim upon the throne tomorrow as
well?”
“I see no need in the middle of mourning the loss of his father. The edict should be sufficient.
Before his untimely death, the late Emperor intended to accompany Prince Sotorii to the Monastery
Among the Winds, and his death shall not change those plans. The prince will continue his mourning
period there, departing within the week in the care of the Seppun Honor Guard.”
Sumiko shifted her weight again, offensively.
Another weakness she must strengthen.
“You have a reservation?”
The Ruby Champion respectfully averted her gaze down from his to deliver her
disagreement. “The Seppun Honor Guard is not enough of an escort. I intend no dishonor to Seppun

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Ishikawa, but the disappearances of the Emerald Champion and the heir to the throne speak to the
complete failure of Imperial guards. We must protect Prince Sotorii with all diligence.”
Shoju nodded at her foresight. “Then I depend on you, as acting Emerald Champion, to see
that the prince is protected sufficiently. Do as you see fit.”
Sumiko bowed in understanding. “And Prince Daisetsu?”
Shoju smiled at her thoroughness. “The Seppun have yet to question the Unicorn
ambassadors about Shahai’s possible involvement in his disappearance, but the meishōdō trinket
has already been sent to Seppun Masayo for examination. I have commanded Bayushi Yunako of
my Elite Guard to search for the prince. She leaves within the hour.”
Concern returned to the Ruby Champion’s face. Shoju nodded to her, having anticipated it.
“Might I suggest another addition to the search party?” Sumiko offered. “Such an endeavor
is not one that could be achieved alone, and she may find a different family name can open doors
that would otherwise be closed to her.”
She intended to have a hand in every affair, a Dragon for every Scorpion influence. He
admired her extreme caution and her loyalty to her clan.
A good replacement for Toturi as an ally.
“You believe I should send someone else to accompany her? A Dragon, perhaps?”
Sumiko’s brow furrowed, ever slightly. “I believe she may need the assistance of someone
whose honor and reputation cannot be questioned. Magistrate Kitsuki Yuikimi has recently arrived
at the capital to assist the Dragon ambassador, but has not yet begun her new duties.”
Shoju smiled. “Magistrate Kitsuki Yuikimi’s assistance would be most valuable in finding
Prince Daisetsu’s whereabouts. Please, ask her to accompany Yunako.”
Sumiko once again bowed in gratitude and acknowledgment of her new task. “I am glad that
we have agreed upon a course of action in this difficult time, Shoju-san.”
“Yes, your cooperation is commendable, Champion,” he replied, bowing to her in sincere
respect. “Your prudence and devotion to your station place the throne in secure hands. I look forward
to our collaboration in the affairs of the Empire. Until tomorrow then.”
“Until the court assembly tomorrow.” Sumiko bowed and exited the room, hand on her
katana.
Shoju turned back to the throne.

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 You make a wise and trustworthy ally, Sumiko. Dedicated to your duty. If only Kachiko had
been so.
The rosewood throne glowed almost crimson in the light of a setting sun. Tomorrow’s
declaration would make it his rightful place as Imperial regent—a Scorpion openly leading the
Empire. They should have remained behind it, in the shadows as their duty demanded. Yet to leave
the Empire absent leadership would be far worse. He touched the armrest once more. This time, the
wood felt warm. Shoju turned away from the omen and left the room, carefully shutting the door
behind him.

The chilly morning deterred no one as the throne room pulsed in turbulent anticipation. Every
courtier, magistrate, official, scribe, steward, attendant, and yōjimbō who could fit within the gold-
papered walls of the throne room thronged inside to hear the edict concerning the late Emperor’s
wishes for succession. Not a voice dared stir the reverence of the occasion, and every face donned
the tranquility of dutiful respect, though the tremors of frenzied energy still leaked through the seams
of courtly composure. Flitting eyes and shivering lips simmered through the sea of people before
Shoju as he entered the room. His spies had already reported to him every shred of gossip concerning
the Emperor’s death, Toturi’s absence, Scorpion involvement, and the princes. No one had guessed
the exact truth. Yet.
Yogo Asami had already assumed Kachiko’s role, sitting in her chair at the Emperor’s left.
She wore Kachiko’s scarlet and white mourning kimono, a somber yet dignified air perfecting the
illusion of her impersonation. Asami nodded a polite acknowledgement of his presence, as his wife
would have done if she had been permitted to attend. Shoju greeted her with a blunt nod. She would
serve sufficiently in Kachiko’s absence.
Did the Emperor not tell Kachiko of the edict because he believed so wholly in our unity as
a couple? How ironic that I did not tell her because I did not worry about her involvement in the
plan. I shall not make that mistake again.
She had left Otosan Uchi the day before, bound for Toshi Ranbo in the company of the
Bayushi Elite Guard. He had instructed Chief Magistrate Bayushi Yojiro on the conditions of her
stay: conditions that would prevent her from undermining Shoju’s duty any further.
A greying Otomo herald called for the opening of the court assembly, and Agasha Sumiko,
acting Emerald Champion, took her place upon the Great Dais, standing directly before the Imperial

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throne. She still wore her Ruby Champion’s armor, though the emerald chrysanthemum about her
neck appeared lighter than it had before. She scanned the assembly with confident eyes, the edict
tightly in her fist. With all attention on her, she nodded to the herald. The Otomo winced almost
imperceptibly before turning his gaze in Shoju’s direction. He bowed deeply before speaking.
“On behalf of the Emperor, the acting Emerald Champion invites the Scorpion Clan
Champion, Bayushi Shoju, to take his place upon the Great Dais at her side.”
A wave of half-stifled gasps and snorts echoed through the throne room as Shoju stepped up
onto the dais. He bowed to Sumiko before standing to her right to face the assembly. Kakita Yoshi’s
silver fan slid open before him as he watched Shoju ascend the dais, and Miya Satoshi’s eyes
narrowed with the faintest hint of a sneer. Ikoma Ujiaki even dared a hissing whisper to his
companion Eiji, whose eyes filled with a confused rage. However, as Sumiko lifted the edict scroll,
the disturbance flickered out, leaving only the smoke of disapproval staining the faces of all in
attendance. Shoju glared at the masses as a sheepish guilt spread throughout the throng.
They know they should not publicly defy the wishes of the Emperor. May Heaven and the
Fortunes help me quell all their secret rebellions.
Sumiko opened the scroll. The celestial intent was made bare.
“An edict...” she read with a strong, steady voice. Shoju closed his eyes.
I do this for you, Jodan. And for Rokugan.
“...from His August Imperial Majesty, Hantei XXXVIII...”

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The last of the lanterns—makeshift things, hardly more than scraps of paper curled around the stubs
of candles—had wandered down the small stream and out of sight before Matsu Tsuko knelt by the
water with her own offering. There wasn’t much in the way of supplies for Obon out here in the
long grasslands of the Osari Plains, but for the memory of her beloved, she had claimed a lantern of
birch bark and oil paper, sturdy as she could allow herself to use. She willed her hands not to tremble
before the watchful eyes of her troops as she lit the lantern with a long reed and placed it gently on
the cold water. After a moment to make sure it would not sink, she released her grip on the delicate
handle and sent it along its way down the stream, a gentle light bobbing away into the dark.
Tsuko remained kneeling, imagining walking beside it down the length of the stream to
where it inevitably joined with the River of the Sun and eventually drifted through the Bay of the
Golden Sun and out into the ocean. And where are you now, Arasou? She dipped her hand in the
stream, feeling the chill of the water. Have you ascended to the Realm of Ancestors? Do you watch
over me now, on this auspicious hour? Or do you linger in the Realm of Waiting—even as I delayed
so long bringing you to your rest? Her fist clenched, accepting the ache the cold water wove into
her fingers. There is so much you had yet to do that part of me fears you are tethered to this world,
but I must remind myself you are too strong for that. She lifted her hand out of the water, watching
droplets fall like tears. I hope you are watching.
As the prayers of the priest finally faded into the night air, she stood at last, silent, as her
troops began to file away back to their tasks. Without looking, she made a slight beckoning gesture,
and almost at once, Kitsu Motso was at her side. He was never far from her these days. Later, she
would consider his true purposes; for now, it was a helpful convenience, and those were few enough.

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 “How can I be of service, Lady Matsu?” The handsome man smiled widely—a little too
widely for such a solemn occasion—but Motso had never been one to vex himself overmuch with
concepts of propriety.
“Please inform my generals that they should refresh themselves and take time with their
thoughts for now,” she said quietly, brushing errant blades of grass from her kimono with brisk
efficiency before facing her lieutenant directly. “I will expect them to join me in my tent by the
Hour of the Dog.”
Even in the dim autumn light, Tsuko could see Motso pale slightly. “The... the Dog,
mistress?” He swallowed and gave an awkward smile. “Would it not be better to meet early
tomorrow morning, at Dragon or even Hare? That hour—”
“I will expect them then.” She turned and walked to her tent, leaving Kitsu Motso alone with
his task in the growing dark.

The emptiness that greeted Tsuko within her tent gave her a sudden pause, and she was on her guard
before she remembered that she’d asked her servants to give her space—in the guise of allowing
them their own time to participate in the small celebration and ceremony that passed for the Feast
of Lanterns while away from home. As requested, a scroll was hung opposite the entrance, covered
with a white linen cloth, with a dish of sand and three small sticks of incense set before it. She
released the handle of her dagger—instinct had made her seize it, though it was not a proper sword—
and shrugged her broad shoulders within the thick kimono. She itched to be out of this formal garb
and into her armor, but she needed to prepare her mind before dressing herself for the challenge
ahead.
The flames in the brazier licked low as she teased out an ember with a small iron rake. She
had sat in front of same brass brazier, teasing the flames as she considered the fate of her prisoner.
She had freed Doji Kuwanan to seek justice: an honorable action, and one she did not regret, but
part of her deeply wished it had brought her more closure, more of a sense of satisfaction. Instead,
the Crane Clan still held out on the battlefields, enduring loss upon loss but never relenting, even as
the Lion Clan wavered, barely holding their ground.
Birds wander blithely through our territory, and the killer of my betrothed still flies free. She
let out a low breath. Doji Hotaru has not the honor to face me on the field within the range of my
blades. Not as things stand now, at least.

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 Tsuko took another deep breath, banking her anger from an inferno back to a low flame, and
used the rake to pull out an ember from the pile and place it into a thick stone bowl. She picked up
the vessel, feeling the warmth radiate into her hands like a fond memory as she carried it across the
tent, placing it before the shrouded picture beside the dish of sand. With a single swift tug, she pulled
the cloth from the scroll, revealing no grand painting beneath, but a simple sketch done in rough
brushwork—her own—that only someone familiar with the man would recognize as Akodo Arasou.
He had been perhaps the only one who could tease her without flaring her temper into true
rage; though to outsiders, their occasional sparring matches might have appeared frightening. She
had once overheard a clan elder chiding Arasou for these displays, that he should not engage in such
contests. “Are we not of the Lion?” he had said proudly. “Should we not fight with everything we
have, with teeth, claws, and roars? What could make our people prouder than to see a champion and
his betrothed display the depths of their fearsome determination?”
She smiled at the memory, then refocused herself, picking up a small reed and lighting it
upon the ember in the bowl, then carrying its flame to the first of the sticks of incense. Cinnamon
filled the air, and with its woody burn came the memories of her vigil at Arasou’s corpse and the
long journey to the Castle of Vigilance for his final rest. She ran her ring finger along the scar on
her right thumb—sliced open on his helmet during such a vigil—and lit the second stick. Bitter and
sweet at once was the scent of bergamot, just as the retaking of Toshi Ranbo had been, with first
news of the victory and thereafter the truth that it had been given not to Lion, but to the Scorpion
Clan. The last stick, the scent of sandalwood, and the memory of news from Ikoma Ujiaki declaring
that Akodo Toturi had become the Emerald Champion.
To him, it was a victory, she reflected, letting out another long, frustrated breath. But I knew
how that glittering armor would further hide his eyes from the plight of our people.
Tsuko felt her anger flare again and restrained it, controlling her breathing as a metalsmith
might the bellows of a forge. Wisps of incense smoke curled around her, wreathing her in the scents
of home, and her eyes rose again to the rough portrait. Calligraphy and painting were two
expectations of a court lady that she had never mastered, and in her life she had broken more than
her share of brushes in fury. Arasou had joked with her about this on more than one occasion, and
finally, she demanded that he pose for her. It had taken a full afternoon, and many terrible drafts,
but finally she had made something that—while by no means a creation of someone with any great

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talent for the arts—showed the intensity of her care. Arasou had smiled and asked to keep the
painting as a reminder of the fearsome depths of her determination.
“I remember what you stood for,” she said quietly, staring intensely at the painting as if she
could will it to better resemble the man she had loved—but more importantly, had been proud to
follow as clan champion. “The pride of being Lion, the joy of serving, the importance of bravery,
and showing that you would do more than anyone to bring honor to us all. At the forefront of every
battle, the loudest at any celebration. You were the beacon of our clan.
“And I swear I will do anything to keep that light from going out.”

It was near the Hour of the Dog when the incense had burned itself down to stubs, and Tsuko swiftly
made preparations as the meeting time approached. The map was neatly rolled out on the war table,
and small figurines of lions, unicorns, and cranes were arranged across its surface. Fresh logs were
placed within the braziers, and Tsuko allowed herself a small smile as she lit each one; the flames
licked hungrily at the wood, and the interior of the tent grew ever brighter.
In the night, a gong sounded the change of hours, and a moment later, a bell rung near the
door flap of her tent. “Enter,” she replied, and watched impassively as her generals filed into the
room. Several showed overt surprise at the sight of the map, and Tsuko in armor. They slowly
arranged themselves around the table, though more than a few faces seemed pinched with concern.
“Thank you for your attendance at this late hour,” Tsuko said evenly, indulging the fiction
that their presence was not compulsory. “I hope the calm of the festival has brought you all clarity.”
“It has, Matsu-sama,” Akodo Zentarō said, “but I do not think it has done the same for you.
Do you not fear the darkness of this hour, and the tragedy that the Battle of the Hour of the Wolf
wrought upon our clan?”
She fixed him with a long stare, as intense as a burning coal held against his hand, and the
general quickly lowered his eyes in deference. “I know well of the tragedy of that day. It is written
in the blood of all my family. But do I fear it?” She raised her chin defiantly. “No. I will not surrender
my nerve to superstition. I will stand upon this day, on this hour, and I—we—will build a new
history.
“Toward that end,” she continued, unwilling to risk her momentum flagging, “I know now
is the time to act. Autumn’s ripeness is fading, and we cannot afford to wait through to the spring.
Delays have cost us dearly before...” The faces of a few darkened at this. Her reference to Akodo

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Toturi’s hesitation—and the failure at Toshi Ranbo—did not go unnoticed. “And I would not have
our people experience this further. Victory—true victory, not simple reclamation of what is ours—
is a taste we have been denied for too long.” Murmurs of assent drifted through the assembled,
mostly from her own family and their vassals, but more than a few among the Akodo nodded as
well.
Your thumb is on the handle. Push the blade free, and they will draw alongside you as it
leaves the sheath.
“Thus.” She picked up the slender bamboo cue in front of her, and gestured toward the map
on the table, careful strokes of paint marking the wide green of the Osari Plains on which many of
their forces currently stood. “I propose we advance the Matsu Legions—First, Fourth, and Fifth—
to the south. First will follow the road directly southward, while Fourth and Fifth move across the
plains to the southwest and circle around Osari Mori, using the edges of the forest as cover.” The
cue slid two agate lion statues near a wide patch of dark green on the thick canvas map, stopping
halfway across it, and Tsuko placed another small marker on the board beneath them. “Both legions
will select their best scouts and send them through the woods, and they will wait and observe here”—
the cue dragged the new marker through the green to its edge, near a castle marked with pale blue—
“until the other legions are able to meet them here. First will hold the eastern road, Fourth the
southern one, and Fifth the plains around.” She grasped the cue with both hands, nodding in
satisfaction. “We march to avenge the loss of the Goseki family, who held Toshi Ranbo until the
Crane stole it away. To burn away our dishonor.” And the cowardly murder of Arasou.
Tsuko paused a moment, studying the faces of the generals before her. She had thought this
plan through as carefully as she could, struggling with the desire to march all her troops in one
formidable force, and instead did her best to think as an Ikoma might, and exercise what seemed the
most practical strategy. As she watched the surprise at her chosen target turn into grim nods—and
even a few small smiles at the thought—she reached out with the cue once more, executing her most
audacious move.
“That leaves the Ikoma Auxiliaries, the Akodo Companies, and the Kitsu Regiment.” The
room seemed to empty of air as she spoke, and the sound of the cue pulling the other lion statues on
the board seemed to scratch at the fabric of the world. Onyx, citrine, and carnelian lions paraded
across the map, moved carefully into position, and Tsuko’s patient narration of her plans sounded
like shouting in a room gone so quiet, and the blood thundering in her ears threatened to drown out

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even that. At last, when the marches of proxy armies had ceased, she lay the bamboo cue back down
on the table and crossed her arms over her chest. “Are there any questions?”
The silence seemed to stretch and grow, until finally Kitsu Motso gently cleared his throat
and gestured to the lions on the map, rampant in their new positions. “With all respect, my lady,”
he said carefully, “those generals will only follow the rightful Lion Clan Champion.” His raised
eyebrow invited further comment, and there was something like excitement flickering in his dark
orange eyes.
The blade is drawn. Now we see if it is meant for my enemies... or for me.
“My generals, I ask you to but look at the portrait on the easel behind me. Forgive my rough
skill with the arts, but I know each of you recognize the face of our former champion, Akodo
Arasou.” She studied them carefully, feeling the heat rise in her chest. “I know you knew what he
stood for. The pride of the Lion, the exemplar of our clan, who held high our banner and dared to
see us rise. I fought alongside him in his victories, as Matsu once fought beside Akodo-no-Kami.
“But who has replaced him?” She ground her teeth, and flames leapt inside her as surely as
they had in the braziers. “A man without bravery, without vision, without honor. A man who
hesitated at the gates of Toshi Ranbo, and who later abandoned it to the Scorpion. You ask me if I
remember the dishonor and devastation that this hour brought upon our clan. I ask you instead—
does Akodo Toturi remember? That he should grant the city that is ours by right to our greatest
enemies? That the Doji should simply be replaced by their counterparts, the Bayushi?”
She saw several among her generals stiffen, but she pushed on.
“What honor is there in following someone who thinks so little of his own? Say what you
will—that an Emerald Champion must bow to the Empire, not simply his own clan—but what
justice is there in risking the welfare of your people, that we might lose the Osari Plains? That our
own people might suffer not only that disgrace, but starve while our enemies grow strong?!” Her
teeth ground together as she struggled to contain her fury.
I must use this flame, or be burned alive by it. This is the proclamation that will determine
a future: either that of the Lion, or of my own end.
“I am a Matsu and not an Akodo, this is true,” Tsuko said carefully, untying the katana from
her belt and placing it on the table. “But I am, most of all, a samurai of the Lion Clan, and I can no
longer bear to see it kept low. My duty is to my clan and the memory of my beloved, its greatest
champion. I cannot follow with false face a man I do not believe in, whom I see leading our people

548
into ruin. I stand to pick up the burden that Arasou-sama dropped and to carry his banner. In me, his
fire will burn again, and it will be a flame that reduces our enemies to ash.”
In one smooth motion, she drew the katana of her family and lay its naked steel upon the
table. “I hereby claim the title of Champion of the Lion Clan, that my betrothed once held, that his
brother dishonors. I claim it not as dowry, but as a debt I mean to pay, and a promise I mean to keep.
“If you find this blasphemous, if you disagree, then I make this demand.” She gestured to
the blade that lay in front of her, and stared at each of her generals in turn, her face hot. “I will accept
your challenge in combat, and lay my life on the line for it. Because I know well there is no turning
back for me, not even to the Deathseekers. If not this...” she raised her head defiantly and let out a
long breath that felt like flames, “there is only death.”
The silence that stretched after that moment seemed to dwarf all those that had come before,
and time became a drop of water trembling on the edge of a leaf, a slowness that was painful to
endure. Her throat suddenly constricted at the sound of a blade sliding free from its scabbard, and
heat again seized her limbs, the instinct of panic—but instead of danger, she saw Kitsu Motso
kneeling before her, head bowed, his sword lying flat upon his upraised palms, offered to her.
“My life for the Lion,” he said proudly, and raised his head slightly to meet her eyes. “And
for Matsu Tsuko, its champion.”
The music of other swords leaving their scabbards was almost deafening in the tent, but each
of them were held out in palms facing her, all knees but her own pressed into the ground in
submission, and Motso’s same promise repeated from all the throats of those assembled. In her
mind, those words turned into roars, echoing in the night air of the Osari Plains.

The cheers that reached Tsuko that evening were sweeter than she could have imagined, somehow
even more so than the thunder of her own heartbeat in her ears, and the fire of bloodlust that seared
her chest as she threw herself into battle just hours before.
“Hail to the Lion Champion!”
“My life for the Lion!”
“For the Matsu!”
Those cheers and other wordless cries of triumph buoyed her spirits as she marched toward
the city. It had been hard to resign herself to fighting outside its walls with the Fourth and Fifth
Legions while the First took point in breaching their defenses, but it had been worth it. She had

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carved her way through what narrow forces had faced them, cutting a whirling path of red through
the pale blue of the foes unlucky enough to face her, and now the prize was hers. She paused for a
moment, allowing her retinue to arrange itself, and admired the sight of Kyūden Kakita, fallen before
her.
Flanked by torchbearers and a banner-wielding honor guard, she strode through the shattered
gates that gaped like a mouth full of broken teeth. To one side of the castle gate lay the rams that
had crashed through them, crafted hurriedly from the once-sheltering trees of the Osari Wood. Along
the interior walls, she could see baskets full of arrows, waiting to be brought up to archers: deliveries
that would never be made, for the speed and ferocity of the Lion assault had been far too great for
the defenders to withstand. Further within, she could see her followers already hauling the dead into
rows in the courtyard, the ranks of blue uniforms far outnumbering those in yellow and brown. May
you run rampant in the afterlife, my brothers and sisters. Tsuko’s smile was small, grim, and
determined. And be certain that your blood shed this day will be added to the very great tally of
what the Crane owe us.
The retinue of the Lion Clan Champion walked through elaborate streets lined with iris
gardens and delicate murals, its people crouched in doorways, faces twisted in shock and disbelief
at the sight of the invaders. Camp servants were already throwing rice stalks on the occasional
bloodstain, as the Lion patrols methodically brought order to the city. The bright glow of the fading
autumn sun stroked its fingers across the castle as the group approached the inner courtyard of
Kyūden Kakita, its rays staining the pale white and blue banners with shades of gold.
The scene within the inner courtyard was less hectic than the exterior. Rough cloths had been
draped over the bodies of fallen guards and their captain, and servants and nobles alike knelt in
clusters, guarded by a detachment of the swiftest warriors of the Matsu. These troops were the ones
she had ordered to make their way through the wilds of the forest... and when the gates of the city
were breached, were trusted to rush directly to the castle and capture it before any of the Kakita
family could escape. Taking in the scene before her—and the trio of well-dressed figures more
carefully guarded than any other group—she felt a small thrill of satisfaction that her trust had not
been misplaced.
She approached the group, studying them carefully: a frightened woman in robes
embroidered with countless delicate roses, an older man with a number-board tied to his obi, and a
sullen-faced youth who stared daggers at her with no fear or submission. This young stork imagines

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itself a falcon, I see. I think I can use that. “I am Matsu Tsuko, Champion of the Lion Clan,” she
announced, and felt a thrill flare in her at the disbelief in their eyes. “I would know your names, so
that I may deal with you properly.”
The older man gave a nervous bow of his head. “I am Kakita Wataru, seneschal of the castle,”
he said carefully, “and this is my deputy seneschal, Kakita Ichirō, nephew to the lady.” The woman
seemed to flinch at being referenced, and Tsuko regarded her calmly.
“And you must be Lady Kakita Barahime,” she said carefully, nodding her head slightly in
respect. “I would know where your son is, Barahime-sama, so that I may ensure his safety.”
“Shinta isn’t here,” the woman said carefully, her voice wavering and her delicate face
struggling to maintain its careful composure. “He is away studying diplomacy at Shizuka Toshi.”
Her façade cracked a little, and Tsuko saw her look at the other nobles and servants, many of whom
wept openly and cowered in fear. “If... if I may, I would know what you intend to do with us. Would
you... do you mean to take revenge for your fallen betrothed?”
Tsuko removed her helmet, tucking it underneath an arm, and shook her head sincerely.
“There will be no harm done to you or your people, Lady Barahime. Of this, you have my word.”
She let her gaze grow hot, and the other woman shrank a bit from its intensity. “Unlike Akodo
Toturi, I know what it means to have honor.”
“A lie, Lion scum,” Ichirō hissed. “You’ll pay for this insult! My uncle will hear of this, and
the Emperor...” The youth trailed off swiftly as a dozen blades focused in his direction, but lowered
as Tsuko waved her hand.
“Captain!” she barked, and the woman snapped to attention. “Gather swift horses, your best
scouts, and a flag of truce. A temporary truce.” She gestured toward the young man, who looked
both frightened and furious. “You will have them escort Kakita Ichirō to the nearest Crane garrison,
where he will inform his uncle, the Kakita daimyō, that I now control his castle and lands, and am
the acting protector of his wife. Should he wish to negotiate...” her gaze was a glowing ember, a
quiet but dangerous heat, “I will meet him on the field.”
She turned her attention back to the lady, who looked more alarmed than before. “In the
meantime, you and your seneschal shall remain our honored guests, Lady Barahime. In fact, night
is falling, and I would not see you get a chill. You will return to your quarters with my own troops
as your protectors.” The woman and man nodded, and were escorted into the castle by Matsu guards,
even as the young man was guided away, a reluctant messenger.

551
 Tsuko turned to her generals. “You know our next steps. Get the gates replaced and fortified
as quickly as possible. Deploy scout patrols to keep us aware of the surrounding areas.” She nodded
with a dark satisfaction. “And sharpen your blades.”
The courtyard rang with Lion Clan cheers for the second time that day, and Tsuko bared her
teeth in a wide, triumphant smile. She could almost hear Arasou’s voice among them.

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 Whoever believes your best interests are their own is as good as a servant.
– Bayushi’s Lies

Kakita Yoshi had made a grave mistake, and now his clan would suffer for it. For too long he had
focused on the mocking smile of Bayushi Kachiko, trying to deduce her plans and the damage they
would cause. The fact that her schemes had, no doubt for years, been nothing but decoys... Yoshi
took a breath. He gazed at the scene before him and composed himself. Cranes and pines painted
for the Emperor by a Kakita artisan, the screen’s promise of longevity seemed worthless now.
Bayushi Shoju’s ambition, his close relationship with the late Emperor, those had always
been the real dangers. How long had the Scorpion planned this travesty? For years, Shoju’s son had
befriended the younger prince while Yoshi wasted time seeking to ally his clan with the elder—how
had he missed this? The image of Shoju standing before the empty throne and claiming a regency
that should have been Yoshi’s would haunt him for the rest of his days. Yoshi looked back down
the corridor, but still no one came.
The Imperial audience chamber would be empty by now. Would no one seek him out? So
many of the usual faces had been absent, and some of those he would have expected to count on.
Even Agasha Sumiko, who had once seemed so incorruptible, supported Shoju. Perhaps she had
already grown too fond of her role as acting Emerald Champion, which she would keep as long as
Akodo Toturi was gone.
Yoshi had known power would shift, but this... this was not merely the end of an era. It was
the end of the Empire that was.
“Apologies, Kakita-sama,” came a voice from behind him.
Yoshi closed his tessen with a snap as he turned, and the messenger flinched slightly.
“A message for you...”

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 Yoshi took the scroll between two fingers. It bore the seal of Kakita Ichirō, his nephew, but
it had suffered on its travels. The faint odor of grass and smoke reached his nostrils, and he held it
at arm’s length as he unrolled it.
He read it four times before he made himself roll it up again. Troubles seemed to pile at his
feet, each heavier than the last. Was this some test, or punishment? He waved the messenger away;
there was no adequate reply to such news. A sharp pain began behind his eyes, and he raised his fan
out of habit, though no one but his yōjimbō waiting nearby would see him wince.
Behind his yōjimbō, the screen had been painted by someone clearly not from the Kakita
school. An ostentatious image, with flashes of gold picking out the lions among red-stained grasses:
it was distasteful, but it was intended to balance the image opposite. The beautiful on the one side,
the terrible on the other.
Yoshi’s skills at court, his way with words, those had once been enough. Now, he had no
words to fix this, no letter to ink. The only thing he wished to send were warriors and weapons,
bushi that could tear the Lion apart. War; but war was not his domain. He had no power on the
battlefield.
He could not wait any longer and left the dark corridor to brave the midday sun, the
unseasonable heat. He was acutely aware of the yōjimbō following in his wake. He had chosen
Kakita Nene as he had it on good authority that she was a fine duelist. She was also a distant relation,
and the news concerned her as well.
It was not her right to know, but maybe it was right that she knew. On a whim, he took a
detour into a quiet corner of the garden where the acoustics were particularly poor and stopped in
the shade of a laden apple tree. He turned to his yōjimbō, whose faltering step briefly betrayed her.
He was acting out of character; she would know something was wrong.
Yoshi gestured her nearer, and she took a few small steps toward him.
“Nene-san, you may take the afternoon for personal correspondence.” He drew the message
from his obi and offered it to her. “When you have read this, you must dispose of it. Rereading will
not change the words.”
She took the scroll and thanked him, though she would not understand until she read it why
he entrusted her with the task. She would have received the news eventually, but this way she could
learn it in private. It was a small kindness that would bind her to him. If the clan were to fracture,
the more samurai whose loyalty lay with him the better.

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 As Yoshi turned to go, one of his aides appeared around a turn in the path. Yoshi took a long,
silent breath, readying himself to receive more bad news.
“Kakita-sama, Regent Bayushi Shoju requests your presence.”

The red leaves of the maples clung stubbornly to their branches as wind rose about them, their
rustling like a chorus of whispered complaints. Like the courtiers who had merely fluttered their
fans that morning and waited to see how the wind would blow next. Shoju had sent for Yoshi
because he knew the court waited to see what the chancellor would do. So, Yoshi made him wait.
Let the Scorpion content themselves with whispers for a while.
“Kakita-sama,” Ide Tadaji said, pouring tea that smelt intolerably bitter. “Your visit is an
unexpected pleasure.”
It was not quite a question, and Yoshi let the silence lengthen. He looked out at the garden
that was designed to look like a landscape seen from afar. Dunes in miniature on the horizon,
diminutive trees, fields of grass. He could almost imagine hordes of tiny horses crossing those fields
on their way to war. When the leaves fell, they would make a scarlet blanket over it all, until
gardeners tidied them away.
“I was surprised not to see you in court this morning,” Yoshi said at last. “But I imagine you
have heard the news?”
“If you mean the edict, yes. Is there other news?”
Yoshi sipped the hot tea. Clearly, Tadaji waited for news of Shahai. Her actions left her clan
in a very unfortunate position. Maybe it was to be expected that Tadaji had not shown his face at
court. Perhaps he was relieved to receive Yoshi in the viewing room where they need not face each
other.
“Nothing of note,” Yoshi said. “I am here to speak of the edict.”
Tadaji nodded and fixed a stern gaze on the garden, as though willing the landscape to
change.
“It is clearly a forgery,” Yoshi said. “It is bold, even of the Scorpion, to fabricate an Imperial
edict. To falsify such a thing betrays the Emperor and his sons, and defies the will of Heaven.
Bayushi Shoju has gone too far.”
“A forgery?”

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 “It must be. The Emperor was wise and his judgment sound. He would never steal power
from his own dynasty and hand it to the Scorpion.”
They sat quietly for a moment, and Yoshi hoped in vain that Tadaji might pour him more
tea. The pain in his head lingered like an unpleasant memory. The Unicorn simply sat and waited.
He did not deny the truth of Yoshi’s words, but did not agree either.
“Until the prince returns to take his place,” Yoshi went on, “we must work together to ensure
Shoju does not undermine all the Emperor’s good work. Already he has begun offering favors to
clans he wishes something from. The Crab have their jade. The Dragon bring their army into the
capital. The Scorpion, of course, have the regency. Already your clan and mine are overlooked and
pushed aside. I know you are troubled over the unfortunate business with Iuchi Shahai, but you must
return to court; you must show your face. For the sake of your clan, stand with me.”
“I thank you for your advice, Kakita-sama. It is always welcome.”
Welcome, perhaps, but would he take it?
“I would like to ask your advice on another matter,” Tadaji went on. “When Iuchi Shahai is
found, I fear the Seppun will kill her before she has the chance to defend herself. I should like to
speak to her and learn the circumstances of her flight from the palace. I can think of no one to appeal
to better than yourself.”
Tadaji paused and Yoshi waited, trying to appear relaxed though he felt taut as the string on
a bow. If Tadaji was not willing to stand with the chancellor, who else could he appeal to?
“I will support you at court,” Tadaji said. “Will you support me in this?”
The Unicorn was trying to bargain, and crudely at that. He was desperate, but these were
desperate times.
“You know there is no forgiveness for the crime of striking an Imperial Prince,” Yoshi said.
“That act alone is enough to necessitate Shahai’s death. However, time I may be able to grant you.
I will ensure she is brought back to the palace for questioning before she is executed.”
“For such a mercy, I would be in your debt,” Tadaji said.
A debt indeed, and not one payable through political support alone. Yoshi needed more than
that. Now was the time to reveal his purpose, and to hope Tadaji was desperate enough.
“Shoju has not only taken control of the court,” Yoshi began. “To his clan’s army, he now
adds the Imperial Legions, and even the army of the Dragon. My clan, already struggling with Lion
aggression at every turn, cannot hope to stand against Shoju. Together, however...”

556
 “You are suggesting open war?” Tadaji asked. “Now I am the one surprised, Kakita-sama.”
“What I am suggesting is an alliance, a show of solidarity.” Yoshi glanced to Tadaji, whose
gaze remained directed to the garden. “As to war, I fear it is already upon us. Here, we can
undermine Shoju in the court. But out there, both our clans are vulnerable.” He gestured toward the
garden as though the whole of Rokugan lay spread out before them. “Together, less so. If Crane
emissaries were to visit your Champion, an arrangement could be found to benefit us all and give
us the strength to fight for the good of the Empire.”
“That may be possible,” Tadaji said. “I know the situation here is too turbulent for you to
make the journey yourself, but I suggest you send someone of high standing to treat with our
Champion. It would demonstrate the seriousness of your intentions. Doji Kuwanan, perhaps?”
Was he hoping for a hostage? Or was the Unicorn Champion so arrogant she would expect
Kuwanan to travel all that way personally to arrange the alliance? It did not matter as long as the
Unicorn army joined that of the Crane.
“Alas, my nephew is otherwise engaged. However, I do already have someone in mind.”

Fumio rolled into the warm patch of sunlight that had inconveniently moved while he slept, stopping
just short of Doji Shizue’s work. Shizue lifted the paper and took one last look before putting it
safely away.
It wasn’t finished, but she had lost her focus. She could not concentrate on poetry while the
palace was in such confusion, and Seppun Guards marched from one end to the other, reminding
everyone of their presence. Was it supposed to be an assurance or a warning? If Shahai was still in
the palace, they would have found her by now.
The thought made her hand stray to the pendant that hung from her neck. She felt the now-
familiar weight of it through the layers of her kimono. Nothing but a trinket, yet a constant reminder
of her absent friend. The crow had flown, as the court said, and the flight alone marked Shahai as
guilty. Still, Shizue prayed she was safe, wherever she was. Prince Daisetsu, too.
The door slid aside, and a servant announced the arrival of Kakita Yoshi. Her uncle usually
scheduled their meetings far in advance; something must have happened. Shizue dropped her hand
at once, the hope of news robbing her of breath.
“Apologies for imposing on you so unexpectedly,” her uncle said, his bow formal but his
smile warm.

557
 Shizue gathered herself quickly.
“You are always welcome, my lord,” she said. “Please. Let me offer you some tea.”
He accepted graciously, and they arranged themselves as a servant produced her favored tea
set and placed it between them. Her uncle said nothing while she prepared and poured the tea. The
steam rose into the air, carrying the earthy scent of mulberry leaves. Perfect for autumn, a tea to
restore body and soul.
Her uncle took a sip and granted his approval with a slight nod of his head.
“How is your health, Shizue-san?” he asked, startling her with such a personal question.
“I am well,” she replied. “Thank you.”
“That is good. I have come to ask you to undertake a journey,” he told her, smiling through
the steam. “This might be a prudent time to leave the capital behind, for a little while.”
He paused, waiting for her response. It was not a command, but she could not refuse her
uncle, daimyō of the Kakita and Imperial Chancellor besides.
“I would never disappoint you, Yoshi-sama, if you wish for me to go,” she said. “Though if
the choice were mine, I would not abandon my young charges at such a time. I have duties here, and
when the court has greater need of their parents’ attention, the children have greater need of me.”
Her uncle smiled, a tired but genuine smile.
“Your devotion to your students is admirable,” he said. “However, I must call you to duty
for your clan today. I received news that troubles me greatly, and I am forced to act.”
“I know of the edict,” Shizue said. “Though I was not there to hear it read. I know Prince
Daisetsu is to be Emperor. It seems an odd time for him to be away from court.”
“I do not know where he is,” Yoshi said. “I think, and hope, that Shoju does not know either,
but I cannot be sure. I fear for the elder prince as well, who leaves soon for the monastery.”
“I appreciate your frankness, Yoshi-sama. These are dire days. Yet, I cannot imagine what
journey you wish me to take?”
“The news I speak of, it is not the edict. No, this news is more personal. It regards our clan.”
He paused, and she waited. “Kyūden Kakita has fallen to Matsu Tsuko’s forces, and the Lion have
taken hostages, including my wife.”
Kyūden Kakita, the source of so much beauty and skill, where the wisest of the Crane passed
their learning to the next generation and ensured the clan’s future—where Shizue had found her
calling.

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 “That is terrible news,” she said, “and is your son...”
“Still at Shizuka Toshi.”
A mercy, one less life to fear for. Shizue said nothing. Somehow, words were not enough.
Every bright memory of that place suddenly seemed so dim and distant, and her heart ached at the
thought of soldiers tramping through those elegant gardens, those serene rooms. She feared for her
old sensei and prayed the kami would keep him safe. His tender years made him no threat to the
Lion, but his sharp tongue might get him into trouble. The thought made her want to laugh and cry,
so she banished it. Her uncle suffered enough without her adding to his troubles.
Such a loss for the clan could barely be expressed, but if her eyes stung for holding back
tears, it was for Yoshi. The personal loss of his wife and castle, that accounted for the shadows
around his eyes. She had rarely spoken to his wife, the soft-faced Kakita Barahime, but had seen
them together, the stern courtier and the compassionate duelist, as different as night and day but
better balanced for it. What chilling fear must grip Yoshi now, beneath his calm exterior?
“The Lion will be satisfied with nothing but war,” Yoshi said quietly. “And Shoju gathers
armies as though he means to conquer his own Empire. Our clan needs strength of arms now more
than ever, and I think you can help me gain the allies we need.”
“Anything I can do for the clan and for you,” she said. “But how can I help?”
“You will travel to the Unicorn Champion to forge an alliance. You will not travel alone of
course, but your presence, as my niece, will impress Shinjo Altansarnai. Or so Tadaji-sama tells
me.”
Strength of arms, he’d said. He wanted Unicorn bushi firing arrows from horseback. Crane
ashigaru cutting down their enemies. The Lion falling, bodies on the battlefield. Mere moments ago,
she had been composing a poem about a crow.
“Of course, I will go at once,” Shizue said.
Fumio chose that moment to pad toward them, stepping daintily between her uncle and his
cup. Yoshi smiled, running a hand gently along the cat’s silver back.
“He asks so little,” Yoshi said. “A warm place to rest, and a gentle master. If only everyone
were satisfied with such simple things. Will you take him with you?”
“No, Fumio will be happier here, I think. This is his home.”
“Then I will ensure he is taken care of,” he said. “Thank you for the tea. I must go and write
to your brother. There is much he needs to know.”

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 “And my sister?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Her uncle left, and Shizue went to her desk. She knelt and closed her eyes, trying to dispel
the fears she could do nothing about. She had a task to perform and would focus on that, on what
she could do for Yoshi, though his final words concerned her. Perhaps it was just that he was dealing
with such a personal grief, but it was not like her uncle to make mistakes. Surely, he should write to
the Clan Champion first, before anyone else.
It probably signified nothing, and Shizue was in no position to question their uncle in any
case. Shizue would compose one last letter at her desk, with Fumio warm on her lap. She could trust
in her sister’s wisdom.

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Mist had filled much of the Kintani Valley, blazing gold under the first rays of Lady Sun. Doji
Kuwanan shaded his eyes and looked at Kyotei Castle, rising like a rocky island from a sea of radiant
gold. He couldn’t see the army encamped around it, submerged as it was in the glowing fog. But he
knew it was there: much of the Crane force that had, until recently, wrestled with the Lion for control
of Toshi Ranbo and the nearby Osari Plains. He needed that army, if he was going to successfully
challenge his sister for championship of the clan. First, though, he must convince the man waiting
for him in his tent, a few paces away.
He looked at the two pieces of paper in his hand. When the Miya courier had delivered them
on behalf of Kakita Yoshi back in Otosan Uchi, he’d hoped they might contain something that would
sway Daidoji Uji. Instead, their stunning contents just made everything far more complicated.
Kuwanan entered his tent. Uji was kneeling, contemplating a map spread across a tatami
mat. It portrayed the region of Toshi Ranbo, as far south as the Imperial Capital. He bowed as
Kuwanan entered; Kuwanan returned it, then knelt across the map from the Daidoji daimyō.
Without preamble, Kuwanan pointed at another place on the map—Kyüden Kakita, ancestral
home of the Crane Clan’s Kakita family. “It is here, Uji-san, that you should be directing your
attention.”
“May I ask why, Doji-sama?”
Kuwanan placed one of the two pages he had received from the Miya courier on the map.
Its flowing script was rendered in crimson ink, signaling its dire importance.
“I have just received this from Kakita Yoshi in Otosan Uchi. The Lion Clan have seized
Kakita Castle. Kakita Yoshi’s wife is now a hostage.”

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 Uji’s dark eyes flicked up from the map. “That is... calamitous news. Why would they do
this?”
Kuwanan remembered his recent confrontation with Tsuko, when a band of rónin had
brought him to her as a prisoner. If Tsuko believed Toturi was inadequate, he had no difficulty
imagining the formidable woman taking charge of her clan.
“Part of it is, no doubt, Matsu Tsuko seeking vengeance for her betrothed, Arasou. However,
I suspect Tsuko also seeks the Championship of her clan, taking it from Toturi. It would certainly
be a way of ensuring her generals were united behind her.”
Uji’s knuckles whitened. “Tsuko takes one of our most important holdings to serve Lion
internal politics? Without a proper declaration of war? That is.” He paused. “The word insulting is
insufficient.”
“Indeed,” Kuwanan said, but considered how to craft his next words. Wasn’t he seeking to
do much what Tsuko had just done? Take the clan’s Championship from the one currently holding
it, because they were unsuited for it? Because they were unworthy?
“What of Akodo Toturi?” Uji asked, breaking the lingering silence. “Is he aware of this...”
Uji hesitated. Kuwanan imagined he meant to say treachery, but that risked attaching the same word
to Kuwanan’s own moves against his sister, didn’t it? Uji finally settled on, “development?”
“I do not know. Yoshi-sama has said nothing about the Emerald Champion”
Uji’s eyes lifted and stayed fixed on Kuwanan. “But he has said something else of
importance.”
Kuwanan avoided a frown. Uji was right—the capture of Kakita Castle wasn’t the only
problematic news in Yoshi’s letter, by far. Am I so transparent? Or is Uji so canny? Either way, it
struck Kuwanan that, if he did need to deceive Uji, he must be very careful how he went about it.
“He has,” Kuwanan said. “Yoshi-sama also reports that the late Emperor issued an edict
prior to his death, naming his younger son, Prince Daisetsu, as his heir. It also names Bayushi Shoju
as regent, until Daisetsu comes of age.”
The tent fluttered, billowing with a sudden breeze. The fog will soon be gone, Kuwanan
thought.
Finally, Uji said, “That is a remarkable edict. Clearly, the news has not yet propagated far
from the Imperial capital.”

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 “No. Agasha Sumiko only recently presented it to the Imperial Court, then handed the
proceedings over to Shoju as the new regent. Yoshi-sama says that the handwriting has been
confirmed as the Emerald Champion’s, and the signature that of the late Hantei.”
“But you nonetheless have doubts as to its authenticity.”
“Do you not? Is it not convenient that Shoju presents such a missive immediately after the
Emperor’s death?” Kuwanan scowled at the icon representing Otosan Uchi on the map. “It has the
feel of... usurpation. And that is something I certainly would not put past Bayushi Shoju and that
scheming wife of his.”
Shoju’s wife, Bayushi Kachiko. Just the thought of her made Kuwanan’s knuckles whiten,
much as Uji’s had. Bad enough that his sister, Hotaru, dared to dishonor their father in favor of a
clandestine relationship with that woman. But this dredged up an even more egregious possibility.
If the Scorpion really did seek to seize power, could Hotaru somehow be part of the plot?
“And what of the Emperor’s elder son, Sotorii?” Uji asked. “I find it difficult to believe that
he will simply accede to all of this.”
Kuwanan placed the second document he had received from the Miya courier onto the map.
“A timely question. This is from Sorai, daimyó of the esteemed Otomo family. He writes that Hantei
Sotorii is being taken to the Monastery Among the Winds by an honor guard of Seppun. He also
provides the details of the journey.”
“To what end?”
“It is rumored that the Otomo have grown to bitterly resent Scorpion influence in Imperial
politics. I suspect this is Sorai-sama’s way of achieving some measure of retribution.”
Uji gave Kuwanan a keen look. “Only if someone were to act, in some fashion, on this
information.”
“Indeed. Clearly, Sorai believes that something is amiss regarding this supposed edict.”
Kuwanan’s thoughts raced on from there. Sotorii would almost certainly be more than
willing to contest it. To do that, however, he would need to be freed from his impending confinement
in the Monastery Among the Winds. Because that is what this was—confinement. Shoju wanted
Sotorii out of the way, but his death—so soon after of the Emperor and the revelation of the edict—
would be far too suspicious. Any violence against the monastery itself was an unthinkable
blasphemy. Yet Sorai had provided the precise routes and timings Sotorii and his honor guard would

563
take to get to the monastery. That route would pass very close to Kyüden Kakita, which had just
been taken by the Lion.
Kuwanan’s attention shifted across the map... from their present location at Kyüden Kyotei,
to Kyüden Kakita... then from Otosan Uchi, to the road that would lead to the Monastery Among
the Winds... then back to Kyüden Kyotei.
Kuwanan nodded as a plan began to coalesce. It was a profoundly risky one. But turbulent
times, such as these, often meant embracing such risks
“Daidoji-sama,” he said, looking back up at the Daidoji daimyó, “I have a suggestion.”

Five Days Later

Kuwanan narrowed his eyes at a grey-brown smudge against the sky. Lady Sun’s gaze fell heavy
and unrelenting on the earth, dessicating all roads to dust so that even a single traveler raised a gritty
cloud marking their passage. This dust-cloud was, however, much more substantial. A group of a
dozen or more traveled along the road traversing these Lion lands, near to the copse of poplars and
birch where Kuwanan now stood. They might be Sotorii and his honor guard. Or, it might be a
merchant caravan, or even a contingent of Lion troops. Until the scouts gave confirmation, Kuwanan
and his army would stay where they were, concealed.
He sniffed at that. His army. If two-dozen bushi—all Kakita—plus a trio of rōnin scouts
could be considered an army then, yes, this was his army. It was all Yoshi had been immediately
able to offer to him, though. There were to have been many more, but thanks to the Lion and their
seizure of Kyüden Kakita, that had understandably become the priority for the Kakita family.
Kuwanan looked back into the copse where his army now sheltered. That was something, at
least—such a small force was agile and easy to hide. To anyone—particularly anyone from the Lion
Clan—watching the march of Uji’s army to Kyüden Kakita, Kuwanan’s small contingent would
have seemed just another scouting party, roving ahead of the main body of troops. It had been easy
enough to break away and vanish into the rolling hills and scattered woods of the Lion lands south
of the Kitsu Tombs, then take up a place of waiting close to the route that Otomo Sorai said would
be used by Hantei Sotorii’s honor guard.
Kuwanan shifted inside his armor, frowning at the sticky dampness of his own sweat. He
glanced into the east, toward Kyüden Kakita and the battle Daidoji Uji would soon fight there. He

564
had every confidence that Uji, a skilled tactician, would win the day. He further doubted Matsu
Tsuko would really put much effort into holding the place, having achieved what she set out to do
by attacking it in the first place. What Kuwanan didn’t know was where Uji’s loyalties lay in the
aftermath.
He had clearly been stunned at Kuwanan’s revelation about the shocking letter from Hotaru
to Bayushi Kachiko he’d found hidden among the personal effects of Doji Satsume. When Kuwanan
had then told Uji he intended to challenge his sister for Championship of the Crane, the Daidoji
daimyó hadn’t immediately declared him a traitor and taken him into custody. And now he marched
to retake Kyüden Kakita at Kuwanan’s suggestion. Still, he hadn’t unequivocally thrown his lot in
with Kuwanan. Now, Kuwanan’s gaze into the east had become a frown. He’d deliberately avoided
outright asking Uji for a declaration of loyalty; the man was the sort who, if pushed to a decision,
would likely choose the contrary one. Still, Daidoji Uji would have to decide who to support, and
soon, because—
“Lord Kuwanan,” a nearby bushi said, “a rider approaches.”
Kuwanan turned and saw a horseman galloping through the high grass toward them. It was
one of the rōnin scouts. A short distance away, he reined in his horse and waved a piece of red silk.
Then he wheeled his mount around and raced back toward the road.
“It is them!” Kuwanan called out, starting for the edge of the copse away from the road
where the horses were tied. “Prince Sotorii and his honor guard approach!”
Kuwanan and his army rode from behind the copse and aimed themselves at a point just
ahead of the dust-cloud. It took them only moments to cover the distance. They reined in their horses
behind a small rise paralleling the road and dismounted, leaving two of the Kakita to hold their
mounts while the rest climbed the rise, crouching as they reached the crestline.
There... less than a bow-shot to the east rode a column of armored Seppun warriors. And
there, among them, a pair of unarmored figures. One would be Sotorii, the other probably an
attendant.
Kuwanan drew his katana. The rest of the Kakita readied their own weapons. Kuwanan
swept his gaze across them, saying, “Remember, the prince is not to be harmed.”
He said nothing about the Seppun guardsmen. It was unnecessary. They would die in the
imminent battle or would commit seppuku afterward. Such was the price of failure.
Silence. Then, a distant clomp of hooves.

565
 A cicada suddenly buzzed nearby.
Kuwanan’s grip tightened on his katana.
The clatter of hooves grew louder.
Kuwanan raised his hand and swept it forward. As he did, he stood, charged over the crestline
and plunged down a short, sandy embankment, crashing into the flank of the Seppun column.
A Seppun guardsman loomed over him. Kuwanan struck, slicing upwards, his blade finding
a gap between armored plates and biting deep into flesh. The Seppun cried out, struck back a flailing
blow with a yari, a broad-bladed spear; Kuwanan dodged aside, grabbed the yari, and yanked the
man from his saddle, striking again when he slammed into the ground—a killing blow.
Kuwanan turned.
Shouts. Shrieking horses. Billowing dust.
The Seppun had been surprised, but they recovered quickly. One galloped past, yari leveled.
Kuwanan ducked, the spearhead whistling past his ear. Another Seppun dismounted, katana drawn.
Kuwanan slashed at him. The Seppun slashed back, then kicked at Kuwanan’s knee. He leapt aside,
struck side-handed. The Seppun dodged. Kuwanan closed in, delivered his own kick to the man’s
thigh. He staggered, briefly unbalanced. Kuwanan opened his throat with a flick of his blade.
Dust fogged the air. Kuwanan’s breath rasped his throat. Sweat stung his eyes.
More shouts. A scream, abruptly cut off. A riderless horse thundered by.
A Kakita bushi stumbled past, his face grimed with blood and dust. Kuwanan shoved past
him, struck at another Seppun’s leg, hamstringing him. He fell, and Kuwanan kicked the man’s
helmet forward, exposing the back of his neck. Kuwanan slashed it, truncating the Seppun’s spine.
The man slumped like a dropped sack.
Kuwanan paused. He gasped for air, spitting gritty saliva and wiping at greasy sweat. He
looked around, katana ready. He could see... four paces, maybe, then the world vanished into
swirling tan and vague silhouettes. The racket of battle diminished. He saw a Kakita bushi slathered
in grime and sweat, spattered with blood and nodded at the man. The Kakita nodded back. Another
Kakita appeared out of the dust, seeking an opponent.
Kuwanan turned. Sucked in a breath that tasted like hot dirt.
“Your Highness!”
A shout. But it wasn’t an answer. Somewhere, lost in the dust, someone still fought.
“Prince Sotorii!”

566
 “Here! I am here!”
Kuwanan rushed toward the voice. A figure, still on horseback, loomed over him. “Your
Highness, are you injured?”
“I...no! Who are you?”
“Doji Kuwanan, your Highness. We have come to help you to rightfully claim your Throne!”
Sotorii gaped down at Kuwanan. Opened his mouth—
A shout.
A warning.
Kuwanan spun around. Swept his katana sideways, deflecting a blow. Not all of the Seppun
were dispatched—
No. This was not a Seppun. Her mon was a coiled dragon.
Dragon Clan?
What—?
The woman, a Mirumoto, struck at Kuwanan again. He took the blow on his armor, biting a
chunk from the lacquered leather. Grabbing the woman’s arm, he pulled, yanking her off-balance,
then swept his katana past her face. She staggered back. Kuwanan jammed a foot behind her leg,
tripping her. She fell, hitting the road with a heavy thud. Kuwanan slammed his heel down on her
throat, leaving her gasping in the dirt, her face purpling.
Dragon Clan. Mirumoto. Here. How? They had seen no second dust cloud. The Dragon
must have followed Sotorii’s party through the fields alongside the road, a harder journey. But why
were they here at all?
Kuwanan spun back toward Sotorii, but another figure blocked his way, katana in one hand,
wakizashi in the other. It was niten, the paired-blade fighting style of the Mirumoto.
Once more, Kuwanan raised his katana. The muscles of his arm protested, burning with the
effort. His lungs felt stuffed full of dust—
The figure lunged, striking from both left and right. Kuwanan dodged the katana and
deflected the wakizashi with the armor of his left forearm. The blade scraped across the blue-
lacquered leather. He struck back, getting his own katana inside his opponent’s, but it struck her
breastplate and ineffectually bounced back.
For a heartbeat, Kuwanan looked squarely into his opponent’s face.
He knew her.

567
 She’d been part of a Dragon delegation to Kyüden Doji, two years ago, maybe three. A
striking, formidable woman. Unforgettable.
Mirumoto Hitomi.
Kuwanan likewise saw recognition in Hitomi’s face.
Then surprise, that probably mirrored his own.
She looked like she might speak. Kuwanan seized the moment to strike again.
Hitomi backpedaled, then counterattacked. Fortunes, she was fast… and fresh, while
Kuwanan flagged, dust and heat and exertion dragging at him. Hitomi’s twin blades wove a
flickering net of steel, forcing Kuwanan to dodge, sidestep… dodge and sidestep again. He
desperately tried to find an opening, slashing, kicking, and punching. But Hitomi’s blades were
everywhere at once, a razor-edged blur.
Now Kuwanan’s heart pounded, blood thundering in his ears like a temple gong. He couldn’t
get enough air. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t find enough air—
An opening. He redirected his blade, striking through it. His katana opened a shallow cut on
her arm.
Pain blasted through his side as hers cut deep.
She had baited him, taking a minor injury to inflict one that might be grievous.
The world had become dust and pain, nothing else.
A yari struck past Kuwanan, driving Hitomi back. Someone grabbed him, pulled him back
and away. He stumbled, but strong arms held him, pushed and urged him along. The dust thinned.
A horse. The Kakita bushi supporting Kuwanan shoved him astride it, shouting…
something. He didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. He got the horse moving.
The clamor of battle faded behind him, lost in the rush of wind, the pound of hooves.
Grimly, Kuwanan hung onto the horse. Other riders surrounded him. They were few.
His army, or what remained of it.
New pain blossomed with each hoof-beat. Kuwanan gritted his teeth and fought to remain
conscious.
The Dragon must have been following Sotorii.
Why?
Because the Dragon supported the Scorpion...?
So why had Otomo Sorai said nothing about it? Because he didn’t know?

568
 Or was it a betrayal?
That didn’t matter now.
What did was failure.
Because failure had its price.
It always did

Mirumoto Hitomi stood atop the embankment watching Kuwanan and the surviving Crane gallop
away. She considered giving chase. But these were Lion lands, so let the Lion hunt them down. She
would stay on the Imperial road, having done what Shoju had asked of her, ensuring Prince Sotorii
reached the Monastery Among the Winds.
That the Crane Champion’s younger brother had tried to prevent that had profound
implications. But that could wait as well. Right now, she needed to ensure Prince Sotorii was
unharmed.
Wincing at her injured arm, Hitomi turned back to the scene of battle. The choking dust was
clearing, revealing horses milling about. Dead and wounded Seppun, Crane, and Dragon sprawled
in the road or the dry grass along it. She looked for Sotorii…
Frowned.
She didn’t see him.
A Mirumoto bushi climbed the embankment and bowed.
“We have secured the area, Mirumoto-sama.”
“Where is Prince Sotorii?”
The man shook his head. “I do not know. His horse is here, as is his retainer, but the Prince
himself is nowhere to be found.”
Hitomi shaded her eyes and scanned the surrounding landscape. To the horizon in every
direction, she saw rolling, grassy fields... scattered copses of trees and scrubby clumps of bush...
innumerable hummocks and hollows.
She puffed out a sigh.
Sotorii must have fled.
And now, with dozens, perhaps hundreds of places to hide…
They might never find him.

569
Late Summer, Sagisōmine Shrine in Crab Lands

The week since Tadaka’s last visit had not changed Azusa much. Her broom-sweeps were a little
slower, her careful walk a little weaker, her complexion slightly more pale from the time spent
indoors. But her brown eyes still sparkled, and she still hummed like a bush warbler. The same dog
greeted Tadaka, a massive puffy bean of white with stick legs, bouncing around Azusa’s every step.
And her smile was the same, the one unchanging detail throughout his visits in the past few weeks.
He startled her with a bare footstep into the shrine’s foyer. Then her eyes lit up. “Tadaka-
sama!” she chimed, instantly aglow with new energy. “You are early. I expected you tomorrow.”
She bowed deep as the dog barked happily in an excited circle, bounding snout-first into Tadaka’s
shins.
“Happy greetings, Priest Azusa,” he replied, offering her a bow. “You are looking better
since last time.”
The young woman’s smile grew wry against her pallid face and sunken cheeks. “Liar,” she
joked.
Azusa’s hand shook as she scooped her ladle into the tea powder. The dog hovered over the
kettle, taking occasional nips at the rising steam. Tadaka tried not to notice the overwhelming light,
dozens of melting pale sticks spreading wax roots across the shrine floor, a virtual ring of flame.
“Forgive all the candles,” Azusa said. “My sight has been darker lately.” Hands shaking, she
tried again with the ladle.
“When did that begin?”

570
 “Just a few days,” she admitted.
Not good. “I should start visiting daily.”
“No! Don’t trouble yourself on my account!” Her braids danced as she shook her head. “I
can manage! I am getting better, I think. I hardly have any nightmares anymore. And it’s been days
since—”
A hand spasm. An echoing clatter. Powder scattered across the floor.
“Damn,” she cursed.
Tadaka took the dropped ladle. “Let me.”
Azusa rubbed her wrist and stared into a candle flame as he prepared the tea. The whites of
her eyes were like aging paper, yellowing and spotted.
“Where are all the attendants?” he asked.
“They didn’t want to get sick,” she replied. She must have noticed his mouth twitch into a
frown, because she hastily said through a smile, “Don’t be mad at them. I told them to go. There is
no reason we should all get sick!”
His stomach churned with the boiling water in the kettle, his face hot like the glowing coals.
His task would be easier now that Azusa was alone, but even so, it wasn’t fair. Hadn’t she been like
a mother to them all?
“Is this normal?” she asked, rubbing her wrist. “The locking joints...”
“Are you drinking cold liquids?”
“No!” she insisted. “Just hot tea. Like you said.”
“No cold liquids,” he repeated. He kept his voice flat, matter-of-fact. “The disease will attack
your joints. Your bowels. You will get weaker.” He hesitated. “I suspect it will get worse before it
gets better.”
A technical truth. But not the whole one.
“Do you think I can do it?” She was staring deeply into that dancing petal of flame. “Or do
you think it would be better...?”
To get it over with. To end it.
Tadaka thought for a long time.
“I remember a shrine keeper who never fled,” he finally said. “Just fifteen, facing down an
angry goryō without flinching!”
Her pallid face flushed and smiled. “I merely stood behind you, and held your ofuda.”

571
 Her shy, admiring eyes brought heat to his face. And shame. Such thoughtless trust...
Loud barking. The dog hunched facing the far corner, growling, unleashing harsh shrieks
again and again.
“Tazu! Stop that!”
The dog obeyed Azusa’s admonishment, pulling away, but Tadaka’s gaze lingered there.
“Are you taking your medicine?” he asked. “Is it working?”
The light recoiled from that dark corner, where the dust and cobwebs gathered thickly,
coating the walls, the ceiling...
She nodded. “It helps me sleep. But it is a dreamless sleep.”
“Sometimes that is better,” he murmured.

“Bad luck out,” Tadaka whispered, sweeping another dust cloud out of the shrine. He hadn’t done
this since he was a boy, but his bones remembered the proper way. He found that he enjoyed it now
that he was older. Something simple to clean, for once. Immediate, obvious results.
Methodically he swept the shrine, floors and ceiling both. But he didn’t sweep the dark
corner. That he left grey and furry, dust motes suspended in the crack, like spores...
When he finished, he returned to Azusa’s flat mattress and the smell of burning sage and
incense. Tazu hadn’t left her side. Her hand rested on his head, occasionally scritching his white fur.
“It is finished,” he told her.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to do that. It’s beneath you.”
“There is no priest-work that is beneath me.” Tadaka leaned in so she could see his smiling
eyes. “I enjoy it.”
“You’re still wearing that cloth,” she observed. He pulled back, fingers absently touching
the sash concealing his lower face.
“Is that the new fashion?” she asked without guile. She chuckled. “It makes me think you’re
hiding something.”
“I will make your medicine now,” Tadaka said.
The rice paper stuck to the fog-root as he unwrapped it. The dog sniffed it once, then drew
back, gagging. Slowly Tadaka ground a piece into an acrid paste, nose wrinkling at the smell, then
carefully measured a portion to stir into Azusa’s hot tea.
“Can we add a little more?” she asked. Her eyes were unfocused, dull.

572
 Tadaka frowned and wrapped up the remaining root. “We must be careful with this. The
right amount will dull the pain and help you sleep. Too much...”
She sighed. “Right.”
Too much would kill her. She knew that already. It was Azusa who had taught Tadaka this,
shown him were to find it, back when he was just an apprentice, and she just a shrine keeper under
his sensei’s Kaiu friend.
“It’s just that the nightmares have come back,” she said.
Tadaka stirred her tea.
“When I dream,” she told him, “I forget my entire waking life. I don’t remember anything
while I am sleeping. It is as if the dream is all I’ve ever known. Until I awaken, and then I remember.
‘That’s right, I am the priest Azusa.’” She paused a long time. “If I die during a nightmare, it would
be as if the nightmare were my entire life. I would die without remembering my actual life, the
people, or the things that brought me joy. It would be as if all I ever knew were terror.”
Black cobwebs in the filthy corner.
“That won’t happen,” Tadaka said, setting the cup beside her. “Trust me.”
Azusa sat up as he tucked the root away. In her open palm stood a tiny origami dog. Tadaka’s
gaze flicked between Tazu and the paper figure. The resemblance was uncanny; she’d even captured
the way his tail flopped when he was pleased.
“This is for you,” she said.
The weight of her kindness pushed him down, buckling his legs and twisting his stomach.
The guilt was cold, like the wet smack of a crashing wave. It was all he could do to remain standing.
“I cannot accept this,” he began.
“Why? I made it to thank you.”
“Obligation warrants no thanks,” Tadaka said. He winced. It was his sensei’s favorite saying.
He used to hate it. How easily it came to him now.
“Even so, this is specifically for you.”
“I do not suit it,” he said, realizing too late that she might interpret his words to mean that
she didn’t know him well enough to craft a suitable gift.
If she did, she didn’t show it. “Then you should give it to her.”
To Tsukune.

573
 Azusa’s eyes were without guile. Without judgment. “She must be worried about you. When
was the last time you wrote her?”
Weeks. Ages. Letters came for him, but he didn’t reply. He’d wanted to, but it never seemed
right. She’d only worry about him. She had enough to worry about now.
Again he regarded the origami. It was the sort of thing she would like. But it was barbed
kindness, wasn’t it? His eyes went to the dark corner, where the dust motes stirred.
“I’m sorry,” Azusa said. “I didn’t mean—”
“She would love it,” Tadaka said, accepting the gift. It felt heavy somehow in his calloused
hands.

It was curious how the filth never spread from the corner. It was a thick cocoon now, grey stuffing
and fuzzy threads, a gradation of light into coal-shade. Just the sight of it made Tadaka long for a
bath. But it never reached too far beyond. It clung to the crack. As if tepid. Cautious. Waiting.
“Tadaka-sama?”
Azusa’s voice was a mere whisper. She couldn’t see except for right before her. There was
dust on her sheet and mattress. She stank of unwashed skin.
“I am still here,” Tadaka said, setting her new dose of medicine beside her.
“Have you seen Tazu?” Concern flickered across her face. “He’s normally begging for food
by now.”
Tadaka lifted his gaze down the hall, out the open door of the shrine, to rest on the unmoving
slumped pile of white fur there, dry lips pulled back from canine teeth amid the buzzing of flies.
“I am sure he is fine,” he replied. “Dogs know how to survive.”
“The root isn’t working,” she said suddenly. “The nightmares are back. Every night.” She
paused. “Tadaka, do me a favor. See to the village’s late harvest festival? They have no one else to
do it.”
Tadaka set the unwrapped fog-root by her bedside and leaned in. “Azusa-san, listen to me.
You are in the worst of it now. But if you endure it, you will get better. Do you understand?”
A weak smile spread on her slight face. “Yes, Tadaka-sama. I trust you.”
When Tadaka turned away, he left the fog-root behind.

574
Azusa stirred awake near the Hour of the Ox. Tadaka could tell from how her breathing changed,
from the soft sobs escaping her lips. He remained still, but in the dark and with her failing sight,
there was no chance that she would see him. He sat silent and watched. Waiting.
Slowly her shaking hand slid from under the sheet, grasping the sticky fog-root. Tadaka
watched as she brought it to her lips. Even in the dark, he could see the glittering of her tears.
She bit into it. Tore chunks away and swallowed. Again and again.
Until it dropped from numb fingers, and her body thrashed beneath the sheet, her head
striking the wood floor with a bone-cracking thump, over and over, pale froth pouring from her
mute, screaming mouth. She vomited on her face. Then, it was blood.
And then, with a final shudder, she was still. Her skin tightened around her lips, curling back
from her red-specked teeth.
Tadaka waited.
The darkness in the corner stirred. The dust fell away, spreading its filth in a cloud. A thin
segmented leg dangled from the darkness of the ceiling. Then, fell. A heavy thud struck the wood
beside Azusa’s still body. Clawed hands scraped her cheek. The shaft of moonlight through the
window glinted wetly off its extending tongue, a red strap of bloated flesh, barbed with curled teeth.
With a wet slap, the tongue dropped into the pooling blood beneath Azusa’s head, curling to lap it
up.
Tadaka stood.
Pale orbs shot open. A razor maw parted in surprise.
“Accept this offering,” Tadaka said, and he let the jade light pour from his hands.
The shrieks echoed across the empty plains. Beneath them throbbed a woman’s sobs.

Tadaka slowly turned the fragile origami dog. The paper was dirty, the corners wrinkled and bent.
It was intact, but it seemed ruined to him now. Again he repeated his prayer, that Azusa’s soul might
know peace. He could barely hear his own whispers above the shrine’s cracking wood and flames,
an impromptu pyre blotting out the stars.
“You are wasting your time,” Kuni Yori said. “She’ll never find peace. Not now.”
Tadaka turned, swallowing the lump in his throat. Yori’s Kabuki-painted face was lit in
bronze hues. Carefully he rolled the barbed tongue into a tight coil, folded it in leather, then tucked
it into his satchel.

575
 “You did well,” the Kuni said. “From this tongue, I can make protective talismans for eight,
perhaps nine Crab warriors. You did a great service to the Crab, and therefore the Empire.”
“She didn’t have to die like that,” Tadaka started.
“Then we wouldn’t have the tongue.” Yori patted his satchel. “A peasant’s life for such a
prize is a fair trade.”
“I could have banished it instead,” Tadaka insisted. “At any time, I could have—”
“Yes, and it would have just gone somewhere else. It could reappear anywhere in the Empire.
A family’s den. A child’s bedroom.” A knowing pause. “The quarters of the Phoenix Clan
Champion.”
Tadaka’s blood soured.
“It can only be truly killed while it feeds,” Yori concluded. “This woman was a hermit. A
peasant. No family. No standing. Better her than another, yes?”
His words made Tadaka gag. As a shugenja, as an Isawa of the Phoenix, he found the notion
revolting. A person’s value was more than who they knew, or whether they had children, or their
possessions, or status, or fame. Azusa hadn’t deserved to be bait, her pain and confusion in her final
moments all but ensuring that she’d awaken in Gaki-dō, the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a damned
soul. At the very least, she’d deserved a peaceful end.
But there was another voice, pragmatic and deeply buried, that agreed with Yori. Nine Crab
warriors could be protected now. A monster was gone. Better one woman than dozens of others.
Better a peasant than someone important.
“There is darkness in your heart.”
He thought he might throw up.
“I did not think a Phoenix would have the stomach for this work,” Yori said. It was meant
to be a compliment. “You have proven me wrong, Master of Earth. Tomorrow, I take you to Hiruma
lands. I will teach you what I know.”
The heat left Tadaka as he followed. This wouldn’t be the last distasteful thing he would
have to do. But the Kuni did these things regularly, and they were the only ones who knew how to
push back the darkness. For the good of the Empire, Tadaka had to learn. He had to bring their ways
back to the Phoenix. No matter what.
Tadaka tucked the origami away. It will be worth the cost, he thought. Do not worry,
Tsukune. You can trust me.

576
Dragon Clan Novella should be read here. Please go to
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/legend-of-the-five-rings-fiction/products/eternal-knot/ to
purchase the novella.

[Page left intentionally blank]

577
Yasuki Oguri unrolled the piece of mulberry paper, checking its brief contents against the building
across the road. Though the storm that had bedeviled their trip across Earthquake Fish Bay was
depleted to a drizzle, it had done its best to give nearly everything he owned a uniform state of damp.
Though the words in the note had begun to run, they were still clear enough for him to make out the
name of the place Hida Kisada had asked him to visit. “The Thrashing Koi” stood out in big block
script on a board near the building’s entrance, with a garishly painted fish, a sake cup curled in its
fin, cavorting next to the lettering.
He let his mind wander, thinking over the deal that Kisada had asked him to make, but
blinked in surprise as one of his escorts cleared her throat awkwardly and leaned close, concerned.
“Is everything all right, Yasuki-sama?”
Oguri waved her away gently. “It’s all in order—I’m where I’m supposed to be. If you feel
like waiting out here, you’re welcome to, but I know the inn at the docks is far more comfortable
than standing around in the street. Go on—I’ll be all right.”
The trio of samurai looked conflicted, but another wave from their master sent them away,
down the street and into the night. As they left, Oguri shifted the weight of the bag on his shoulder,
tapping it reflexively to make sure the item was still there and secure.

A calm day, breezes from the sea stirring the leaves of the maples outside. The spring chill caused
him to draw into his kimono further, even as his father seemed completely at ease, laying out the
board for the game of shōgi with practiced skill. “Pay attention, son. This is a lesson you will want
to take to heart.”

578
 The drizzle began to slow, resolving to a mist that made the lanterns near the teahouse door
glow with an almost supernaturally inviting light. Giving the strap of his bag one last nervous tug,
Yasuki Oguri walked across the street and through the heavy cedar sliding doors of the Thrashing
Koi.
After the quiet of the street and the hush of the rain, the sensation of walking into the
teahouse was like being bowled over by a wave of noise. Sailors shouted and argued, servers with
clattering plates weaved between groups as they walked to and from the kitchen, and dice cups
clattered as working folk spent their hard-earned coin on games of chance. Oguri gave himself a
moment to become acclimated, making a show of blinking his eyes as if coming into the low light
from the outdoors disoriented him, and surreptitiously scanned the room. Almost immediately he
saw that his careful survey wasn’t terribly necessary: at a far corner, surrounded by rowdy sailors,
was a proud woman in teal robes, blowing elaborate smoke rings from a long-stemmed pipe.
Kudaka.
Taking a cue from one of the many servants moving through the crowded teahouse, Oguri
did his best to weave his way through the crowds, picking up an unattended stool and plonking it
down at Kudaka’s table. Almost instantly, conversation at the table stopped, and he felt the stares
like pinpricks all along his face. Forcing a jovial smile, Oguri waved over a server, and reached
inside his belt pouch. “I’m terribly thirsty—could you fetch me some of your finest shōchū?” The
handful of silver bu that clinked noisily on the server’s tray caused an almost palpable welling of
interest in those around him. “And why don’t you get some for my new friends here? I’m sure
they’re parched as well.” The server bowed quickly and hurried off, and Kudaka leaned slowly
forward, her dark eyes curious.
“Interesting,” she purred, her accent pronounced. “Don’t see that kinda gesture often ’round
here. Mostly ’cause only a fool is free with his money in a place like this...” Her smirk deepened.
“Or you happen to be someone who knows no locals will mess with him.”

The smooth tiles of the shōgi board lay arrayed before him, and Yasuki Taka smiled widely, rolling
up the long sleeves of his kimono like a laborer at work. “Look at this, my son. Do not think of it as
just a game. This is a performance, and you must catch the attention of your opponent right away.

579
Like...so!” A fuhyō swept across the board with a flourish, the pawn marching into an aggressive
position. “A bold move requires a bolder one, wouldn’t you say?”

Oguri smiled, then shrugged almost bashfully, throwing his shoulders back a little to reveal
the family crest picked out near the collar of his undertunic. “I think you’ve caught me,” he laughed.
“I am indeed a bit of a local fish.”
“How nice of a local fish t’ buy some visitors a little refreshment.” Kudaka smiled coyly and
blew another elaborate smoke ring into the air. “You this nice to every bit a’ driftwood that washes
ashore?”
“Hardly, though I’m happy to buy drinks for whatever ‘bit of driftwood’ you think is worth
the beverage.” Oguri lowered his voice slightly. “Although I think I might have something far more
interesting to a priestess of tempests and tides.”
A pair of slender twins to the right of Kudaka froze, their gaze locking onto Oguri’s with
muted alarm. Kudaka paused, chewing on the stem of the pipe before tapping it thoughtfully against
her teeth. A moment later, she lifted her left leg and expertly shoved the sailor sitting next to her out
of his seat. He gave a slurred yelp. “Look at that!” she said. “Seems a spot just opened up. Come
rest your bones here, stranger.”
Smiling widely, Oguri abandoned his previous seat for the new one, feeling the pale eyes of
the twins boring into him as he moved.
“So you know a tenkinja when you see one, then, local fish—or you know me by name.”
Kudaka gave him a long, measuring look before smirking, amused. “For the moment, you’ve got
my attention. What brings you my way?”
Oguri paused as a server set a jug of shōchū and a handful of cups on the table. He waited
until they scurried away to pick up the jug and pour an ample serving of liquor into each of the cups,
pushing one to Kudaka first before sipping from his own.
“Three weeks ago, the Watchtower of Sun’s Shadow in Ishigaki Province stopped sending
reports to Hida Castle. It might have been nothing, but...” He cleared his throat, and coughed as the
sweet-potato wine burned a line into his sinuses. “A team of scouts was sent to check the area, and
none of them returned. Something might have gotten through the Wall. I need to bring in a force
that’s swift and dangerous enough to find out—and to either take care of it or send a message back
letting Hida Kisada know why.”

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 Kudaka sniffed, nodded, and took a long drink of the shōchū herself. “And you could use
some Mantis at your back.”
“We could. I have heard excellent stories of the valor of the Mantis.”
Kudaka downed the rest of the shōchū and took a few more puffs on her long pipe. The
amusement had dropped from her features, replaced with a calculating stare. “Our islands are a long
way from your Wall.”

Taka waited as Oguri tapped his finger on one of his own pawns, and slid it deftly across the shōgi
ban, marching deep into enemy territory. “And there it is: the bolder move, commanded as the
gyokushō sits comfortably in the distance, observing!” his father crowed. “ An excellent move by
the player of the jeweled general.” Taka’s grin grew thin and wide, like a crack in a clay cup, and
Oguri wished he hadn’t lifted his finger off of the fuhyō piece. “Now the foe has reached its forces
out, but you must not be swift to strike. Draw them out safely, as a hare from its warren...”

“To be fair,” Oguri said, taking a leisurely sip of his shōchū, “any Crab problem is bound to
be a Mantis problem too, before long. The demons of Jigoku don’t much seem to care what clan
anyone belongs to.”
Kudaka’s smirk was dark. “Ain’t seen any demons crawlin’ across the waters yet.”
“Fair.” Oguri nodded. “But I also must point out that what I propose isn’t exactly a
landbound journey: I plan to travel up the River of the Last Stand. Your expertise in such an
endeavor would be unmatched.”
“In the Shadowlands, then?” Without breaking her gaze, Kudaka snatched another cup of
shōchū from a nearby sailor, who looked upset for a moment but left to go find themself another
drink. Her expression had not changed. “Even riskier.”
“My lady Kudaka,” Oguri said seriously, leaning in, “I am not your daimyō. I don’t come
here with demands. I come with the intent to make a deal.”
The woman chewed on the end of her pipe, and Oguri could feel himself being weighed in
her gaze, measured as loot...or ballast. “All right, then.” She nodded. “What’s your offer?”
Oguri steepled his hands together and affected a businesslike mien. “I know you are well
aware of the... historical difficulties that the Crab and Crane Clans have encountered with each other.
Thanks to the snooping of one particularly determined member of the Asahina family”—he saw

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Kudaka’s face twitch a moment, almost imperceptibly, and knew his source had been accurate—
“the Crane are now aware that the Mantis have been attacking them directly. While I’m sure they
are somewhat preoccupied with their feud with the Lion Clan, I am certain they can put together
that Crab and Mantis are friendly with one another if they see your troops traveling with their colors
out.
“Now, I know the plan for Yor—for your leader’s travel—was to cross the bay at night, in
simple garb, to make the trip to Hida Castle in secret. But...” Oguri affected his most charming
smile. “With a promise of aid for the watchtower in Ishigaki, all Mantis need not fear flying their
colors, but should do so proudly.”
Kudaka snorted. “You can drench that grin right now, local fish. No ship roams the Sea of
the Sun Goddess that would fail to recognize scores of armed sailors and multiple tenkinja, no matter
how we were dressed.” Her smile and gaze grew sharper. “Besides—Amaterasu herself could glide
down and very politely ask me to hide these colors, and I’d tell the First Sun, ‘Sorry, divine, but not
I.’” She snapped the sleeves of her teal robes with a confident flourish, and leaned back on her seat.
“You best do better’n that bilgewater you call a ‘deal,’ or we’ll be takin’ your shōchū while you call
it a night.”

Was his father mocking him? Oguri frowned as he watched Taka select his next piece. These moves
were beginner’s mistakes, hardly what he expected from an experienced shōgi player. Did his father
think his skill so poor? I’ll show him, he thought, and pushed advantage after advantage, moving
aggressively both in tactic and in force, tiles clacking against the shōgi ban.

“Of course!” Oguri stammered, laughing awkwardly. “That wasn’t even really an offer, more
like an... idea. What I wanted to show you was this!” He pawed in his bag, drew out a small cedar
model of a ballista, and displayed it with a flourish. The twins looked at it with a mix of confusion
and excitement. His source had said that there were sailors in Kudaka’s crew with an interest in
Kaiu craftsmanship, but she merely raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
“This is the model of a ballista created by the Kaiu family. On the Carpenter Wall we use
much larger versions, which we load like so...” He fished out a sharpened stick and carefully loaded
it into the model, cranking back the tiny winch until the waxed thread of the little weapon was taut.
Carefully, he presented it to Kudaka, holding it up so that it could also be seen by the sailors at

582
nearby tables. “They launch giant wooden bolts, often with oil and fire in notches at the top of the
spike. It’s enough to kill an oni—or break a ship’s mast. The Kaiu family are the most skilled
engineers in Rokugan and could easily make weapons like this from bamboo for your ships.”
Kudaka took the tiny ballista from him and studied it for a moment, taking in the details of
its construction. “A very nice toy,” she said with a dry chuckle. She tapped the release lever, sending
the little bolt straight at a sailor who had leaned closer to Kudaka to study the model—more
confirmation of his source’s information on Kudaka and her crew. The woman yelped and grabbed
her wounded hand in surprise. “Gettin’ a little too close to a conversation that don’t concern you,
Miki,” Kudaka said smoothly, her voice low. “It’s a dangerous habit.”
As the young sailor scuttled away clutching her bleeding hand, Kudaka turned her attention
back to Oguri, placing the model on the table and drawing a long breath on her pipe. “Nice enough,
local fish,” she exhaled, smoke wreathing from her mouth with every word, “but you think like
someone landbound. Bamboo spears’d shatter on any hull. Iron might pierce nice, but it might snag
us, too. Besides, we don’t exactly want to sink our targets, most of the time, and giving space over
to extra missiles means less space for cargo.”
“I have no doubt the Kaiu family would be open to collaborating on a—”
“Promises of a feast just make folks hungrier,” said Kudaka, cutting him off. She tapped her
pipe against her knee, letting the ashes trickle to the floor. “I aim to keep my people fed.” She ground
the last of the embers under her heel, then gave him a long, irritated look. “I’m not puttin’ the lives
of my crew on the line for some promise or trinket. Thank you for the drink, Yasuki.”
Oguri sighed, shaking his head, and reached into his pack a final time. “I suppose, then...you
would not be interested in this?”

In disbelief, Oguri looked down at the board, seeing his gyokushō checkmated.
“A jeweled general trapped in his own aggressions,” Taka said, folding his arms across his
lap. “Feints—poor moves—to heat the blood, to draw you in. And then the final move, where things
are turned around...”

The eyes of the twins widened in alarm as Oguri placed the wakizashi on the table,
unwrapping it carefully from a protective silken sheet. From what he had been told, this was an item
Kudaka would truly value, though he had initially had his reservations. Kudaka’s scorn dropped

583
immediately when she saw the symbol etched on the pommel, gold against deep-teal jade. Her dark
eyes widened, and sought Oguri’s.
“I know you must be wondering if this is truly what you think it is,” he said softly. “Permit
me to show you proof.” Gently, he eased the blade from its sheath, revealing a delicately serrated
inner edge. “Much like a shark’s grin.” He chuckled, returning the short sword to rest.
“This is indeed Shōbai, one of the ancient blades of the Mantis Clan, gambled away centuries
ago by a champion who could not place his desires below his honor. I shall not speak his name for
his crime, nor of the journey the blades made before they came into the hands of my great-
grandfather many years ago, but I shall speak of this...
“Shōbai is not without a partner. It is part of a daishō, and its kin is not lost: the katana rests
in the care of my family. It was no small feat for my great-grandfather to acquire those blades... just
as it would be no small thing to sail along the river bordering the Shadowlands, to discover the fate
of the Watchtower of Sun’s Shadow. Such a promise of loyalty and bravery would be worthy of the
gift of the blades.
“Except,” he said with a small smile, wrapping the wakizashi back in its silk covering, “for
this. It is our symbol of goodwill.” Oguri held the sword, balanced on his palms, out to Kudaka.
“And it is meant for you.”

It took several moments of staring at the board, before his disbelief turned to admiration. Oguri
started a moment as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up into the eyes of his father, who
held out to him a shōgi piece—not one from the set in front of him, but an ōshō, a king general, the
black ink on its ivory surface faded and yellowed with time.
“I was your age when my father showed me that same tactic. I was livid at first—I thought
myself one hell of a shōgi player, but I fell into his trap like any fool. After I understood his meaning,
I went to him and apologized.” Yasuki Taka smiled, his eyes far away for a moment. “He just
laughed and gave me this piece, and told me to use it to remember the lesson, even as he added
another one. ‘A gift brings trust, and a potent reminder of a bond,’ he told me, and now I’m telling
you.” He tossed the piece, and Oguri quickly caught it, running his hands over the tile.
“You played gote this time, as the challenger, but remember—in a deal, you are sente. You
are the first player, have the first move, and control the board.” Taka wagged his finger at the piece
in Oguri’s hand and winked. “Don’t let yourself forget that.”

584
 It was a moment before Kudaka reached for the sword, and she laughed with delight as she
ran her hand over the dark silk package. “Seems I was wrong. This is one trinket we’d proudly fight
for.” She looked up at him, dark eyes bright with excitement. “I think I’m up for an adventure after
all.
“Fuu! Umi!” The twins blinked suddenly, as if startled out of a dream. “You’ll be coming
with me and my crew on this little trip. Don’t argue.” Their mouths closed forlornly on any
objections. “You’ve never been outta sight of the sea, and it might do you some good, bein’ on the
mainland a bit.”
Kudaka turned back to Oguri, and he scrambled a moment to catch up as she stood. “I called
you a local fish, but you’re a bigger cormorant than your father. Though no less clever—or slippery.”
She extended her arm to him, in the custom of the Islands of Spice and Silk, and when he did the
same, she grasped him by the forearm and squeezed it briefly, her teeth flashing in a wide smile.
“See you on board the Poison Tide, Yasuki.”

It was late that night when Yasuki Oguri returned to his room at the inn near the docks, and later
still when enough of the sting of the shōchū had left him that he felt ready to write a letter. He
scattered fine sand across the wet brushmarks with a scribe’s precision and, after a moment,
carefully blew across the mulberry paper to send the sand scattering. It was a short missive, meant
for Hida Kisada himself, written in a bold but simple script:
The king general is triumphant. The jeweled general sends their forces.
Oguri regarded the missive one final moment, checking for errors, then reached into his
pocket, taking out a worn shōgi piece, black ink fading on the yellowed ivory. He smiled a moment,
then returned the piece to its home, and folded and sealed the letter.

585
It was after his third failed attempt to complete Harmony at a Balanced Edge that Toturi realized
the kata was hindered by more than just his sluggishly healing injuries. He could not blame his
imperfect footing on the unfamiliar balance of the practice sword, nor his protesting knee, which
felt wooden and weak. The foundation of a Lion’s strength was their pride. What had he to be proud
of now, hiding in this dōjō in the wake of his failure?
“We fear that whoever sought to have you killed may have succeeded in a similar attempt
against the Emperor.”
Toturi’s heart shuddered—a shameful pump. That it beat while his lord’s was still was bad
enough. That assassins scurried freely in the Imperial Capital—organized and strong enough to
strike at both the Emperor and his sworn protector—was unthinkable. In the history of the office,
had there been a more significant failure?
With each passing day, more distressing news dripped from Kāgi’s lips while Toturi
recovered in the shadows. Shoju sitting on the dead Emperor’s throne. The rightful heir missing,
presumed kidnapped by the Iuchi witch. The Dragon Clan army occupying the capital. Skirmishes
breaking out in the outer districts of Otosan Uchi, as if ruffians in hiding could sense the tension.
And the latest of Kyūden Kakita, how Matsu Tsuko had seized that Crane castle in Toturi’s
absence. By remaining hidden, letting them believe he was dead, was what unfolded there on his
hands? If the Lion threw the Empire into war, would he ultimately be responsible?
It was as if the fragile seams holding the Empire together were now fraying. Tearing apart.
What use was an Emerald Champion who could not hold them together?

586
 Toturi gazed longingly at the tip of the practice blade. The edge may be dull, but the tip was
sharp, like the fang of a cat. You should fall on that, he thought. It would be a slow death, and one
he deserved. Even young students of the Lion Clan who failed their gempuku still had the courage
to split their bellies rather than shame themselves with their failure. What excuse did he have, then,
for a heart that still beat and lungs that dared to draw breath?
“You wish to make the three cuts then, do you?”
Toturi froze at his brother’s voice. The memory was as unbidden as it was vibrant and real:
his brother, Akodo Arasou, cross-armed and smiling. The vassals of a defeated Ikoma lord, whose
death they could not prove to be at Daidoji hands, pressing their foreheads into the dirt, begging to
follow him into the next world.
“What a terrible thing to outlive your lord,” Arasou had said. “But I can think of something
more shameful than that. And that is dying before having avenged him.”
The blade clattered from Toturi’s fingers. He could not help but smile. Arasou-kun...You
always were the best of us.
Very well.
Toturi burst into a frenzy of strikes, chasing and tearing into invisible opponents, his bare
feet raking into phantom knees and shins, his fists uncurling between strikes, like retracting claws.
His shadow cast a feline shape against the wall, a hallmark of The Cornered Lion kata. How easily
it came to him now!
As he tore an aggressive path through imagined opponents, a hundred threads unfolded
before him—invisible pathways tangling and forking, a tapestry of possibilities. He chose a thread
and followed it.
The first question: who had the most to gain from the Emperor’s death? The answer was
obvious. Shoju was regent, after all. The Emperor’s decree, penned by Toturi himself, made the
Master of Secrets the most powerful man in Rokugan. Shoju had known about the decree, hadn’t
he? It only followed that he had the most to gain by the Hantei’s death.
But then, Shoju would have also known that the Emperor intended to abdicate. All Shoju
had to do was wait a few days, and he would be regent anyway. So why kill him? He’d already won.
Why risk everything just to be regent a few days sooner? That wasn’t the man Toturi remembered
from their sparring match years ago, a man who was still and watching for openings, a man who
waited. Shoju was many things, but impatient wasn’t one of them.

587
 It couldn’t have been Shoju, then. Someone else had something to gain. But who?
The next thread: Daisetsu’s disappearance. The courts blamed the Iuchi witch, and it was
true they’d vanished together, were even seen together by Daisetsu’s yōjimbō. The young Seppun
had vanished since giving his testimony, leaving his topknot behind. But the timing was too
convenient. After all, if the heir could not be found, wouldn’t that prolong Shoju’s time on the
throne? For that matter, if he never returned, would Shoju ever abdicate?
Toturi considered a convergence of threads. What if Daisetsu was kidnapped by the same
forces that made the attempt on his life and killed the Emperor? It was true that the Unicorn had no
love for the Imperial Court. For that matter, Toturi’s death would have aided their war against the
Lion. But would they dare attempt such a thing? It wasn’t like them. Was Shahai complicit in it? Or
had she perhaps played another role, one the court had not considered: that of a savior? She was
fond of Daisetsu, after all. It was no secret to those who payed attention.
In either case, the heir was in grave danger. Whoever had killed the Emperor would surely
come after him. And if Toturi was discovered alive, they would come after him as well.
Was there another who Toturi and Daisetsu shared as an enemy? No sooner had he asked
himself than a name surfaced, draining the color from his face and pausing his kata. But then, his
last interaction with Sotorii had not been pleasant, had it? And if he knew about the edict, he would
become angry—an anger that was well known to the court.
But angry enough to kill his own father? And if so, why leave the edict intact? Why not
destroy it and claim the throne himself?
No, it could not be Sotorii. The conclusion brought him great relief, and he was briefly
ashamed for having considered it.
The next string, then. And the next. The world became a blur of imagined threads and raking
strikes, of possibilities and instinctive movements. At their center was Shoju, again and again. He
was connected to this. But how?
The kata ended in an abrupt strike. Toturi held the pose Lion Faces the Heavens. He had no
answers for the questions that plagued him, but perhaps he did not require any. His course was clear.
He could not allow an assassination attempt on the Emerald Champion to go unanswered.
To do this would announce that anyone could attack the office of Emerald Champion without fear
of retribution. For the integrity of the office, he had to root out these killers and drag them into the
light. And perhaps, in so doing, he might discover what really happened to the Emperor.

588
 He would start with Shoju. He would march into the court and demand answers.
And if Shoju really was behind the attempt? If Shoju had killed the Emperor?
Well, at least Toturi would go to Meido knowing the truth and with honor satisfied.
Toturi crossed the dōjō on certain feet, new energy coursing through his veins. It was risky,
announcing to the court that he was still alive. For all he knew, his assassin might be among those
in the court. And he could not count on the Lion’s protection, now that Tsuko commanded them.
He could always assert his position, seize the clan back from her, but to do this would shame the
samurai who followed her with treason. The Lion could not afford a mass seppuku while at war
against two clans. Better to let her lead for now. Even if it was a risk, he had to accept it.
Filled with new purpose, Toturi slid the door aside.
Akodo Kaede stood in his path.
She knew. It was obvious from the look on her face. Somehow, just from one look, she knew
everything he intended to do.
“I won’t let you,” she said.
“I should hide here forever, then?”
She winced.
He pressed. “I cannot allow the world to think a strike against the Emperor will go
unavenged. Failure is why there is no longer a Jade Champion. I cannot allow the office of Emerald
Champion to suffer the same fate. I cannot allow these assassins to roam free. What if they go after
the Imperial Heirs next? Will I be remembered as the Emerald Champion who stood aside?” He
turned away. “If so, how could I ever show my face to you again?”
Kaede fixated on an unseen horizon. “The injured lion, striking wildly at anything that
moves, is a deadly opponent. But so focused on the enemies before him, he does not see the spear
hovering behind.”
He hesitated.
“You seek meaning in death, Toturi-kun. Show yourself now, and the assassins will strike
again. I won’t be there to stop them this time. That is a death that means nothing.”
An overwhelming urge came from Toturi’s belly, to refute her, to push past her, to rush
headfirst into the court and roar to shake the foundations, like Akodo, like a Lion. Let them come,
he thought. Let them all try!

589
 Instead, Toturi sat at her feet. “Then what should I do? I cannot ignore my oaths, nor can I
hide while the Empire crumbles. I am lost, Kaede. I am torn in two.”
She knelt beside him. Her forehead felt warm against his, as warm as her breath on his cheek.
“Your oaths are mine, Toturi-kun. You won’t face this alone. We must find your path, our path,
together.”
He nodded. He trusted her. “What would you have us do?”
When she told him, it was like finding a candle after a lifetime in the dark.

A troupe of performers had invaded the Dancing Koi Market in the Kanjo District, causing the
already-busy marketplace to swell with even greater numbers than usual. This suited Toturi’s
purposes well, a fortuitous turn suggesting he hadn’t completely lost the Fortunes’ favor as of late.
Actors and poets competed loudly with the cries of merchants to weave a heavy blanket of noise
above the throng of peasants, who crowded to the left side of the street in a congested mass, leaving
the right mostly clear for rickshaws and samurai.
Among them, Toturi chose a small stand of puppeteers and stood at the back of the
onlookers. The actors were cloaked in black with their faces obscured in dark silk, making them
virtually invisible against the stage’s backdrop, dark except for the emblem of a Cat in the top corner.
A minor clan, he supposed, seeing the mon with a feeling of vague familiarity. He watched one of
the puppets dangle loosely from its strings with a piquant sympathy that could only come from
shared experience. Strangers cloaked in black were controlling its fate.
At once, he became aware of eyes upon his person, like a feather’s touch on the back of his
neck. His hand hovered above his sword as he discreetly scanned for anyone not watching the show.
Toturi wore a simple kimono with no trappings of his office, but that would not stop his enemies
from recognizing him, were they to somehow spot him here, so far from court.
He relaxed only slightly as Seppun Ishikawa approached, the crowd parting for him and the
emblem of the Seppun Honor Guard. His hands were tucked into his sleeves, pointedly far from the
twin swords tucked into his obi.
“Good day, Toturi-sama,” he said, coming to stand beside the Emerald Champion. His casual
bow drew little attention. In other circumstances, Toturi might question the gesture’s curtness.
“Good day, Ishikawa-san,” he replied. “Are they both yours?” His eyes flicked to the nearest
rooftops, where there existed only a hint of movement and shadow.

590
 Ishikawa banished his momentary surprise with a deft sigh. Was he impressed or annoyed
that Toturi had noticed the spies? “The Hidden Guard perform their duties.”
Toturi withdrew his hand from his sword.
“Apologies,” Ishikawa continued, “but we could not take the chance that your message was
forged. Rumors persist that you had died.”
Toturi smirked. “An... exaggeration.”
“Have you had rice?” Ishikawa asked. The common parlance with cold delivery, an inquiry
of well-being with little substance except to be polite. “There is a nearby cart selling dorayaki, if
you don’t mind a snack.”
“Dorayaki, you say?” A gong-shaped pancake with sweet azuki bean paste. They were
normally reserved for festivals, but Toturi had heard of no such celebrations. “What is the
occasion?”
“A royal gempuku. Any day now, Prince Daisetsu will graduate and take his new name.”
When you can find him, Toturi thought. It made sense that Ishikawa would wish to perpetuate
the falsehood that Daisetsu was still in the Forbidden City, and that he hadn’t in fact been kidnapped.
Toturi wondered how many would actually believe that story, all things considered.
The pastry cart stood away from the market throng with an almost-suspicious absence of
customers. The owner ladled batter onto a gong-shaped pan and made two pancakes, not asking for
payment as he handed them over. Ishikawa ate in silence, observing the fish and frogs in a nearby
koi pond as the city moved around them. By the time Toturi had finished telling his story, his own
pancake had grown cold.
“So you suspect the Emperor’s death and the attempt on your life are connected?”
Toturi nodded. “The timing is suspect. But perhaps I am mistaken.” He watched Ishikawa
carefully. His next words came with all the weight of the opening move in a game of shōgi. “After
all, the palace wards would have alerted the Hidden Guard if this were so.”
There. A twitch of his eye. The Seppun followed a spotted koi as it danced in the pond, eyes
darting within a stone expression. It seemed to Toturi that he was inwardly debating, deciding
whether or not to speak.
He finally whispered, “The wards do not work.”
Toturi’s mouth went dry. How could this happen?

591
 As if reading his thoughts, Ishikawa continued. “The kami residing within that room are
absent. The Seppun have confirmed this. The wards can do nothing without the kami. It was
previously unthinkable. But our suspicions now are that the ways of the Iuchi are what robbed the
sanctum of its spirits.”
Then the Phoenix were right to warn us of the Unicorn’s ‘name-magic,’ Toturi thought.
“Then it is possible that some terrible fate befell the Emperor without the Hidden Guard knowing.”
“Keep your voice down,” Ishikawa hissed. Peasants stirred around them, heeding no notice.
Toturi swallowed the urge to remind Ishikawa that he was addressing the Emerald
Champion. Ishikawa was the one who had investigated the scene of Toturi’s assault. He needed to
know whatever the Seppun knew. Even more, he needed allies.
“Ishikawa-san, I cannot allow such a bold assault on the Emerald Champion to stand. To do
so would forever embolden the office’s enemies, for then others could say attacks on the office
would fear no retribution. For the honor of the office, I must find the assassins and drag them into
the light, where they can meet the Emperor’s justice. An attack on the Emerald Champion is an
attack against the throne itself.”
“This goes without saying.”
“But to do this, I need the discretion and full cooperation of the Imperial Guard. Of the
Hidden Guard.” He took a breath. “And of their captain.”
After a long while, Ishikawa finally spoke. “Did Kaede suggest this?”
Was it so obvious? Toturi contained his urge to chuckle. “She did.”
The Seppun stepped abruptly away. They stood on opposite sides of the tiny pond, the curve
of the bridge between them. Toturi could only see his back.
“And why would I agree to help someone who has so completely failed the Emperor?”
Ishikawa’s words were stinging venom. Toturi’s chest collapsed into his heart, squeezing it
tight, his cheeks flushing with heat. It did not matter that the accusation was correct, that Toturi had
been impotent in the most important duty demanded of his station. It was an insult. It must be met
with steel.
Ishikawa’s hand moved to his sword. It was no secret that Ishikawa had studied at the
prestigious Kakita Dueling Academy. Was he baiting Toturi into a duel? Was that what he wanted?
Toturi searched his memories, scrutinizing every interaction with Ishikawa that he could recall.
When had he offended the leader of the Imperial Guard? And why pick a fight now?

592
 At last, Toturi spoke. “If I have failed, Seppun-san, then so have you.”
Ishikawa spun. There was fire in his eyes, a snarl on his face, and death inches from his
quivering hand. But he knew Toturi was right. In the light of their mutual failure, there was little
reason they shouldn’t both die here and now.
And yet something held him back. Whatever the offense, deep down, Ishikawa had to know
they were stronger if they worked together. That he needed the authority of the Emerald Champion
just as much as Toturi needed the Imperial Guard. That they didn’t know who their enemies were,
but they could know their allies.
Then make him see.
“Why hesitate?” Toturi shouted. Eyes and faces turned. Ishikawa was visibly stunned, his
face reddening, and yet Toturi continued, his voice cutting above the din. “If I have offended your
honor, then draw your blade here! I would be proud to die having crossed swords with the Captain
of the Imperial Guard, and I would be honored to send you to Meido! Honor would demand nothing
less than blood!”
A cold wind rippled between them, stirring the leaves. Not even the koi dared to move.
Toturi straightened and extended his hand. “But if you believe, as I do, that we may yet serve
the Son of Heaven, then I beg you set your sword aside. I beg for your aid.”
The nearby peasants calmly walked away. Carts were lifted and pulled. Soon, the entire area
had emptied. None risked being present for whatever would happen next. Toturi waited.
Ishikawa did not move until the last soul had left the square. Only then did he tuck his hands
once more into their sleeves, approaching Toturi with a peaceful gait. Even so, his face was hard,
and only now did Toturi recognize the disdain suspended in the man’s brown eyes.
“You have it, Toturi-sama. For this purpose, we will work together.” Ishikawa leaned in, his
voice just above a whisper. “But endanger Kaede’s life again, and I will end you.”
Toturi remained in place long after Ishikawa had gone, a stoic reed in the cold wind that
touched his very bones. Absently, he felt the sensation of having achieved a victory, but it was as
shallow and artificial as the pond at his feet. He knew more now than he had before, and some things
he wished he didn’t.

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The sun rose crimson over the river, casting everything in its scarlet hue. A veil of mist lingered on
the rolling plain, covering the bodies of fallen ashigaru, slaughtered horses, and broken spears.
Smoke carried on the wind from the north.
At the top of the hill, Utaku Kamoko reared back on her steed, Reiko, tasting the wind. The
clamor of battle came to her like a whisper.
She charged down the hillside, fixing her eyes on the line of Lion Clan ashigaru locked in
battle by the riverside. Drawing her mother’s katana, she tore through their ranks, leaving a spray
of red in her wake. Two, five, ten. She trampled a fresh-faced man, screaming, under Reiko’s
hooves. A pair of battle-worn soldiers leveled sharp spears at her mount’s chest and would have run
Reiko through had she not banked a hard right to shatter the formation of another cadre of warriors.
Kamoko tasted blood. The death cries of the Lion Clan troops sounded in her ears, dissonant and
clear and perfect, as the other Battle Maidens thinned their ranks. Across the field, her sisters slashed
their way through wave after wave of soldiers, their armor slick with blood.
A sharp, clear whistle pierced the air from across the battlefield. Three sudden trills, in quick
succession. Kamoko’s jaw clenched as she gripped the hilt of her blade tighter.

The sound brought her home, over a decade ago. She was standing on a small wooden bridge, staring
into a pool. The blue expanse of the sky was reflected, cloudless. The same three trills, high and
sharp. Kamoko looked up to see her mother approach, resplendent in her battle armor.
“You should be tending the blessed herd,” her mother said.
“But Haku said we could practice—”

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 “Haku is being disciplined for...” Her mother’s mouth pursed. “Insolence.”
Kamoko huffed. Her mother was slender and beautiful, her right cheek scarred by the nick
of a blade. Everyone complimented her mother on her beauty and her ferocity on the battlefield and
said Kamoko would grow up to be the same. But Kamoko did not like to be told so.
“I told you it was my fault!”
Her mother nodded absentmindedly, suddenly preoccupied. Near the front gate of the estate,
a row of Utaku Battle Maidens stood in a line, having awaited her arrival with an air of urgency.
“It may have been your idea, but Haku is the one who loosed the marmot. And your Ide
cousins, unfortunately, do not possess your sense of humor.”
Her mother nodded to the Battle Maidens. One of them began walking toward the bridge,
while the rest filed out the front gate.
“Tending the steeds is both your penance, and your duty,” her mother said firmly.
Kamoko’s hands balled into fists at her side as she stared back down at the reflecting pool.
“Kumi-sama.” She heard the low, clear voice of the Battle Maiden. Her mother regarded the
warrior with a stiff bow and received the woman’s message.
“We have the element of surprise,” her mother said gravely. “Ensure your sisters are ready
to ride.”
A kind breeze swept through the garden, smelling of wildflowers from the steppe. The
warrior left. Her mother came close, leaned down, and hugged Kamoko tightly. Kamoko struggled
to stay stiff in her embrace, then relaxed her shoulders and allowed herself to melt into the hug. Her
mother smelled of cedarwood and horsehair.
“I will bring us honor,” Kamoko huffed.
“You bring our family honor every day,” her mother whispered.
Kamoko smiled in spite of herself, wrapped in her mother’s arms.

The scene of bleeding, desperate battle played around her by the riverside. Kamoko’s face was
streaked with blood and soot, her pulse ringing in her ears as blade clanged against blade. A samurai
wearing a fierce mempō tore a path through rutted earth, swinging a blood-drenched naginata.
Like the wind. Kamoko smiled grimly. Coiling her legs, she launched herself out of the
saddle toward the samurai. His angry mask met her gaze as he swung the unwieldy polearm out,

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ready to skewer her. Kamoko’s pulse fluttered for a moment before Reiko barreled past the samurai,
knocking him off balance. The subtle shift was all she needed to strike.
She swung her mother’s katana in a clockwise arc. The blade nicked the samurai’s neck,
spraying blood across the battlefield. She didn’t have time to watch him gurgle out his last breath;
with a sharp whistle, she jumped deftly back onto her steed and rode north.
The field was littered with corpses—fur-maned Lion Clan infantry, slack-faced soldiers,
fallen riders and battle mares—but the tide had clearly turned in the Unicorn’s favor. The blood was
already seeping into the ground. Whatever crops were grown here would surely carry the taint of
war for a generation.
Upriver, the Lion had commandeered a small farming village. Their best warriors had poured
out of the dilapidated buildings to die at the hands of Kamoko and her sisters. She saw a trio of
Battle Maidens skimming the edge of the battlefield, cutting soldiers down with their blades. A
surge of pride welled up in her heart and emerged as a smile on her face. The sun in the east reflected
in brilliant shimmers on the polished armor of scores of fallen ashigaru.
“Get!” She goaded Reiko on past piles of dead, following the black sand of the river north
to the village. The Lion Clan mon hung from the eaves of rooftops, rustling in the breeze. Scattered
across the field, mounds of discarded helmets and dirt shored up the bases of several rigged Unicorn
banners that flapped in the wind. Beyond the village, scores of Lion tents stood in neat rows in the
fields beyond. No stir of movement showed in the village itself.
Following the broad, muddy road into the village, Kamoko drew a breath. Dirt, sewage,
bricks of mint and tea leaves. The scent of earth.
“Stay here, Reiko.” Kamoko ran one hand down her mount’s neck. Reiko tossed her head in
reply but stayed in place. Kamoko dismounted and walked past empty huts, each hung with the Lion
Clan mon. The houses were eerily silent. A breeze stirred prayer flags strung overhead and hung
from windows. This village had paid tribute to the Utaku family for years, she thought. Surely the
Lion had threatened violence if they did not submit.
The wide, muddy road was filled with footprints, hoofprints, and wagon tracks. Had they
completely evacuated? She followed it into a cluster of tall, older buildings. An izakaya door hung
open like a slack jaw. A heavy wind rolled down the street, snapping the Lion banners. A veil of
clouds invaded the sky overhead as the dread silence returned. Kamoko kept one hand on the hilt of
her mother’s katana, every fiber of her being drawn like a bowstring. She was not alone.

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 A sudden movement. Three sharp trills sounded from up above. A dozen Lion Clan ashigaru
emerged from shadowed doorways and hidden alleys. The one holding a bone whistle, fringed with
a mantle of leonine fur, stood up from his perch on the balcony. Their leader, a large, scarred man
with an imposing beard, stepped forward.
“Stand down,” he said.
She drew a sharp breath.

Kamoko sat on a grassy knoll near her home, watching Reiko, Ishi, and Norio graze, the rest of the
herd scattered across the hillside, when she heard her mother’s whistle—three trills, high and
sharp—pierce the stillness. Looking across the wide valley, she saw the jagged ridge of rocks that
separated the grazing fields from her home. The sky was clear and peaceful. The three-whistle trill
sounded through the emptiness again. Kamoko’s blood froze.
She said a quick prayer and whistled for Reiko. They were both young and carefree—her
mother had warned her against taking the young dappled horse as her mount, saying Reiko could
not be tamed. They had said the same thing about Kamoko. Reiko’s dark mane trailed behind her as
she trotted down the slope, chewing the stalk of a purple mountain flower.
“I need your help, my friend,” Kamoko said firmly. Then, clutching Reiko’s coarse mane,
she hiked herself onto the horse’s back. She clucked her tongue twice, slapped her steed lightly on
the rump, and started down the broad slope back home.
The rolling waves of grass gave way to a wash of dry riverbed that snaked through a rocky
gorge. The wind hissed through the tight space, whipping strands of her hair across her face; it
carried a stale, bitter scent.
Kamoko’s cheeks flushed as she breathed it in. A mix of cedarwood, horsehair, and
something she couldn’t place.
She rounded the final outcrop to see her home just as she had left it. Her mother’s attendants
stood in a line in front of the gate, as several Battle Maidens limped back along the main road toward
their encampment nearby. Kamoko’s ears rang with the sounds of imagined battle: metal upon
metal, death cries. Haku stood at attention with her mother’s attendants. His face was bone white.
“No. No, please,” she whispered, urging Reiko on.

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Her mother’s blade was slick with the blood of three Lion. Their attempt at an ambush had gone
poorly. As Kamoko charged a pair of ashigaru in the heart of the village, she heard a sharp whistle.
Several Unicorn riders rushed into the fray, scattering the line of Lion infantry. These Lion must
have been fresh recruits.
“You fight without honor!” Kamoko’s blade caught one ashigaru in the arm as she spun
around, parrying the other. They were just boys: too fresh faced to present a challenge. She ran the
first through and charged another as a flank of Lion infantry closed in on her right. A deft move.
The Battle Maiden stepped back and put some distance between herself and the infantry.
“The Unicorn holds these lands!” she shouted. “Submit, and you will be spared!”
A brazier of coals lay smoldering on the ground nearby. Someone had been grilling fish. In
a single, deft motion, Kamoko swung her foot out to kick the brazier, spilling coals on the ground.
Cinders flew up, blinding her opponents before scattering in the breeze. A cart filled with barley lit
up with a crackle.
Fools. They are all such fools.
Kamoko stabbed one soldier in the chest and kicked another into the blaze. There was a
rhythm to it, a dance: she moved like a tree swaying in the wind, following its currents. The last of
the ashigaru fell to her feet, prostrate in the mixture of blood and dust.
“I submit!” he crowed.

Kamoko’s throat tightened, went dry as she dismounted and stood at the entrance of her home.
Several Lion samurai approached on horseback, each veiled in a mantle of blood-soaked fur. The
leader slouched, favoring her right side as she rode. Kamoko blinked back tears.
“Utaku Kumi fought with honor and slew five noble Lion samurai in her final breath,” said
the Lion. Haku sank to his knees as the leader dismounted and untethered their mother’s armor and
weapons from a travel satchel.
The Lion samurai fumbled with her mother’s armor, lost her grip, and let the pile of metal
fall to the ground with a rude crash. Her mother’s daishō lay in the dust, the wakizashi half-drawn.
A bloodied scrap of yellow-gold silk caught on the blade told the story of her death.
In her mind, Kamoko walked past a gallery of wartime horrors—gutted horses and samurai,
bloodied spears, burning homes—to the heart of the skirmish where her mother had died. A line of

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blood ran down her mother’s perfect chin, and her neck lay open as a sluice. The hands that had
held her just hours ago were cold and knotted. Her body was an empty house; her spirit was gone.
The Lion samurai bowed as Kamoko leaned down and picked up her mother’s katana. The
grave silence was broken by Haku, sobbing softly into his hands.
The Lion tore out your throat, mother.
The attendants, the gate, Reiko, Haku, her home, all faded away. Nothing mattered. The Lion
Clan had taken the best thing from her. She clenched her jaw, drew the blade to eye level, and swung
her mother’s katana in a wide arc.
The Lion deflected the blow with an exhausted air.
“The battle is over,” the samurai said wearily. “Do not waste your life.”
She felt her eyes sting with hot tears.
“The battle has just begun.”

“Fan out and search for any survivors. We lost our hold on this village because of dissenters. Kill
any who do not swear allegiance to the Unicorn.”
Kamoko barked the orders, then headed north through a narrow muddy street. A foul breeze
blew, carrying the scent of dung and urine—and some faint fragrance. There was an intensity to the
silence, like that of a held breath.
A prayer wheel spun lazily, breaking the quiet.
Her armor was scored with scratches and splattered with Lion blood. To her right, a
dilapidated house stood with a tattered Lion banner hung over an open door. She smelled sweet
roasted meat.
“Come out!” She stood at attention, hand crossed over her waist to rest on the hilt of her
mother’s katana. “I am Utaku Kamoko of the Unicorn Clan. We have liberated your village from
the Lion Clan. Submit or accept the consequences.”
A minute passed with no reply.
“Very well!” Kamoko shouted. “I have no choice but to come inside. If you resist, you will
reap the harvest of your defiance!” Tightening her grip on the hilt of the katana, she crossed over
the threshold.

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 A small bundle of energy tackled her as she stepped inside. A young girl of about twelve
lunged at her from the side, stabbing at her chest and back. A small boy screamed from somewhere
in the dark room.
“Do not resist!” Kamoko knocked the pommel of her blade against the girl’s chest, pushing
her away. The young boy—presumably her brother—wailed openly on the floor.
“Get out of our home!” seethed the girl. Her tone was coarse, low.
Brandishing her mother’s katana, Kamoko felt her pulse pound, slow and sluggish, in her
ears. A stray fly buzzed lazily in the claustrophobic dim.
“I would leave you in peace,” she replied. “But before I do, I must ask you to pledge
allegiance to the Unicorn.”
The child spat on the ground in front of her.
“My family serves the Lion.”
Kamoko’s pulse fluttered. The katana felt heavy in her grip.
“Where is your father?” she asked the girl.
“Dead.”
“And your mother?”
“Dead.”
The girl spat again. Kamoko’s face grew hot.
“And are there any elders in your home?”
“None.”
“Then you are the last of your family,” said Kamoko.
“Slaughtered by the Unicorn,” snarled the girl.
“We have reclaimed this settlement. You must serve us now.”
“I would rather die.” The girl puffed out her chest.
Kamoko savored the stillness. She felt the moment wash over her like cool, clear water. The
girl’s face was flush with passion.
“Enough have died today,” Kamoko said. “But the decision to resist is yours. You may face
me in honorable combat, if you wish.”
She watched a minute, insidious calculation crossing the girl’s face for a single moment,
before surging into rage. The Lion girl charged at Kamoko, slashing wildly with her knife. Kamoko
drew a sharp breath and felt emptiness grow within her as she raised her sword to strike.

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Kamoko fell back in the dust in front of her family’s estate. Her face bled as a dark-violet bruise
spread under her eye, her skin scuffed with dirt. The Lion samurai stood over her, swaying
unsteadily from one foot to the other. One of her mother’s attendants stepped forward, then
demurred.
“Enough noble blood has been spilled today,” the samurai said. “Do not dishonor your
family home by making me spill more.”
A slight breeze blew from the north, drawing out her mother’s scent.
My mother was gutted like an animal.
Kamoko looked up and snarled.
“You have the ferocity of an Utaku,” said the samurai.
Her jaw stung where the samurai had hit her.
“I must fight for the memory of my mother.”
The Lion choked out a hoarse laugh.
“And who will bring honor to your mother’s memory if you are dead?” The samurai drank
from a gourd hanging at her waist. Haku let out a sob from behind Kamoko, as if to underscore the
Lion’s words.
“You come from an honorable family. Do not waste your life.”
The samurai held the gourd out to Kamoko to drink. She waved it aside.
“If you desire justice, you will not find it. If you desire vengeance, seek it on the battlefield.”
Kamoko looked up at the Lion samurai. Her face was silhouetted, ghostly, in the shade of a
cloud. She could not discern her features. To Kamoko, the face was the face of every Lion: proud,
unyielding, uncompassionate. Inside her, a surge of emotion rose up and flooded every corner of
her being. Her mother was gone and she would never see her again, never feel her embrace. The
wind would carry her mother’s scent away.
As she began to weep, the Lion bowed to her, then hiked herself up on her horse and rode
away. The other samurai followed.
Kamoko’s tears fell in heavy drops on her mother’s katana lying on the ground. The sun
emerged from behind a cloud, reflecting up at her from the blade with dazzling radiance. A pirouette
of dust whorled around her in the wind, whispering. Her tears fell, washing the dust on the ground
into the rough shape of a bleeding sun. After what seemed like hours with only her grief, Kamoko

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looked up to the sky and then around with bleary eyes. Haku and the attendants had gone inside.
She was alone.

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The tracks were easy to follow. Although the southern reaches of the Empire rarely saw snow, it
could happen, and this winter was a hard one. Mitsu didn’t need his wolf tattoo sharpening his senses
to follow the footprints, but he kept it alive anyway. He’d spent four years searching, from one end
of the Empire to the other, and he could not stand for losing his quarry this close to the end.
As he drew close, he heard a quiet humming. Through the snow-dusted pines, he saw the
mounded shape of a heavy straw cloak and, above it, the head of a woman with her hair pinned in a
loose knot. She was using a small hatchet to cut the bark from a pine tree, adding the strips to a
bundle at her feet.
Mitsu paused, breathing deeply to steady his pulse. The hatchet wasn’t a threat, and Kazue-
san had said the spiritual danger was long past. I might as well start off by being polite.
He released the energy of his tattoo and stepped out from behind a tree. “What are you
doing?”
He’d taken care to ask while she was tidying her pile of strips, so she wouldn’t cut herself
with the hatchet. But the woman didn’t jump in surprise. She only brushed her hair from her face
and bowed low. “The inner bark of the tree can be eaten, Togashi-sama. And I’m not aware of any
law that prohibits the gathering of bark in this wood.”
Given what he’d seen in the nearby village, he didn’t have to ask why she was collecting
food. And he was easily recognizable as an ise zumi—especially for a woman who had met one
before. Her face was as described, an oval slightly too long for traditional beauty, with straight,
heavy brows, and she was foraging in the wilderness to help others just as he had suspected.

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 As was what she said next. “Before you do whatever it is you came to do, Togashi-sama,
will you permit me to deliver this bark to the village? Mothers there have been starving themselves
to give their children more to eat, and it still isn’t enough.”
It seemed her insight hadn’t dulled at all. “Of course, Senzai. After that, though, you’ll have
to come with me to the High House of Light.”
Across the Spine of the World, in wintertime. But Mitsu had searched a thousand remote
forests, flyspeck villages, and city slums these past four years, facing everything from bandits to
disease to the questions of interfering officials, all to find this woman. One peasant among millions:
the strange hermit his fellow monk Kazue had met in the remote depths of the northern mountains,
whom his clan champion had ordered him to find and bring back, for the sake of the Empire.
He had her before him at last. He didn’t dare wait for a better season.
Senzai retied her bundle with a rough piece of twine and lifted it to her back. “And if I don’t
want to go?”
Mitsu said, “I’m afraid I can’t allow you that choice.”

It didn’t occur to Mitsu until later how absurd that exchange had been. Senzai was a peasant, and he
was the heir to the Dragon Clan Champion; choice never entered into it. But he hadn’t been thinking
about rank at all—only the chance to fulfill his lord’s order at last.
“Are you going to bind me?” Senzai asked as they began their journey north, trailing Mitsu’s
packhorse behind them.
“Are you going to run away?”
“I have no plan to do so.”
It wasn’t a promise not to. Merely an indication that she was willing to go along with him
for now. “Not unless you give me reason,” Mitsu said, and hoped she would heed the warning. He
doubted she could get far before he caught her, but it would be a long, tedious journey north if he
had to spend half of it rounding her up.
Senzai didn’t shy away from him or cast her gaze around like she was looking for an
opportunity to flee, though. She led Mitsu’s packhorse quietly for several hours, walking steadily
and without complaint, keeping her head down when a Scorpion patrol stopped and asked to see
Mitsu’s travel papers. When the short winter day faded into grey twilight, they halted at a temple on
the bank of a frozen stream, where the monks gave them hospitality for the night.

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 She was silent through the meal, and he wondered if she was planning an escape in the night.
It would be smarter than running away while he was awake. I wish I had a tattoo that would let me
go without sleep, he thought ruefully. The best he could do was to place himself between her and
the door and leave the wolf tattoo active while he slept. It made for a restless night, Mitsu rousing
at every small sound, but that was a small price to pay.
Fear was one of the three sins. His mind looked everywhere for something to go wrong, now
that he finally had Senzai in hand. Regret was also a sin, though, and Mitsu knew which one he
preferred.
In the morning, Senzai was still there—and more talkative than before. “You’re Togashi
Mitsu-sama,” she said after they’d walked for a little while. “For an ise zumi, you’re unusually
famous. I’ve met a surprising number of people in my travels who have heard of you.”
“And you’ve wandered surprisingly far, for a peasant with no travel papers.” He’d chased
rumors of her through the lands of every single Great Clan.
Senzai shrugged. “It isn’t as difficult as people think. There are fewer threats in the
wilderness than in civilization, for those who know their way.”
From what Kazue had said, she was more than capable of surviving in the wild. “But most
peasants wouldn’t risk it without good reason. Why have you been moving around so much? Are
you searching for something?”
“I could ask you the same, Togashi-sama.”
“You’re dodging my question.”
She smiled and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Yes and no. ‘Study what the pine
and cherry blossom can teach’—isn’t that what it says in the Tao?”
“You’re seeking Enlightenment, then.”
“I’d say understanding, instead. Humanity may not be the only keeper of Enlightenment, but
pine trees and cherry blossoms can’t tell me much about people. To understand those, I need to
speak with people across the Empire—from the humblest servant to the heir of the Dragon Clan. I
imagine you understand that very well.”
Was she referring just to his habit of making friends with peasants, or something more?
Mitsu had wondered at first why Togashi Yokuni had chosen him as heir, when he was the most
restless man in the order. By contrast, the Champion of the Dragon Clan was an isolated figure,
sitting apart from the Empire in the High House of Light.

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 During Mitsu’s search for Senzai, though, he’d come to understand. Isolation brought
clarity...but it could also bring ignorance and coldness of heart. When the time came for him to don
the armor and mask of the champion, Mitsu would need the wisdom he’d gained in his travels, his
awareness of the breadth of the Empire, and his compassion for those his decisions would affect.
Mitsu nodded thoughtfully—then scowled. She was more philosophical in her approach than
most courtiers, but Senzai was as skilled at deflecting his thoughts as the most silver-tongued Doji
or Bayushi. “What happened when Kazue-san used her tattoo on you? What enlightenment did it
bring?”
“‘The Tao we speak of is the True Tao, yet it is not the Eternal Tao we speak,’” Senzai
quoted. Then she laughed quietly. “Forgive me, Togashi-sama. I’m not trying to be unhelpful. But
I can’t reduce what happened to words, except to say: ‘The last and the first—are they not the
same?’”
He knew that phrase well, from Kazue’s report on her encounter with Senzai. It was the koan
her tattoo had guided her to speak. But as Senzai had reminded him, the words were inadequate, and
always would be; the truth that lay behind them could not be spoken. Whatever moment of
enlightenment Senzai had experienced when she heard them, it wasn’t something she could
communicate to Mitsu.
The clan champion wouldn’t have sent me to collect her without a reason. Spiritual wisdom
alone was not enough; there were many wise people at the High House of Light. Something about
this woman was different.
“If I may ask,” Senzai said, “how is Togashi Kazue-sama?”
Another deflection. They had a long way to travel, though, and patience might net him more
than pushing. Balancing inaction with action: it was a core lesson of the order. “She’s well. She
often expresses her gratitude for the wisdom and guidance you shared with her.”
Senzai shook her head. “I owe her far more than she owes me. I had lost my way, and without
her, I might not have found it again.”
And what is your way? he wondered. During her hermitage she’d nearly transformed into a
yōkai, a spirit creature; she could just mean her humanity. But he didn’t believe that was all.
Maybe all would become clear once he got her to the High House of Light. The li rolled past,
day after day, the ground beneath his feet climbing into the Spine of the World; soon they would
pass through to Lion Clan lands, and the teeth of winter. Senzai conversed with Mitsu readily

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enough, but she might as well have been a koan herself, an impenetrable puzzle, waiting for him to
experience a flash of understanding.
Instead he woke one night to discover Senzai was gone.

He leapt to his feet, the energy of the wolf flaring through his senses and his hands clenching into
fists. His first thought was, she lured me into trusting her. She’d bided her time until they were away
from civilization and watching eyes, then made her escape.
Then reason took hold once more. Senzai had survived winters in the Great Wall of the
North; she wasn’t a fool. They’d sheltered for the night beneath a stony ledge, driven there by a
snowstorm that had prevented them from reaching the way station up ahead. That storm had laid
down a fresh mat of snow—one that showed her tracks with perfect clarity, even to someone without
Mitsu’s advantages. She’d made no attempt to hide them.
He sniffed the ground, breathing in her scent. Fairly fresh; she’d been gone less than half an
hour. He could catch her easily.
The trail led toward the road, and up into the mountains rather than back down toward the
plain. Before Mitsu had gone very far, he heard her voice, muffled by the snow, speaking in a low
tone. Wariness sparked again. Meeting with someone?
Rather than approach directly, he circled around and found a boulder to scale, allowing him
to look down on Senzai without being seen.
The snow lay in a shallow, gleaming bowl between the rocks, just out of sight of the road.
Senzai knelt, heedless of the cold, at the side of a man whose white-crusted clothing said he’d been
there since before sunset. The man’s arms and legs sprawled at unnatural angles: broken, and badly.
Whatever was going on, it wasn’t some clandestine conspiracy. Mitsu slid down the
boulder’s other side. Senzai’s voice continued, soft and soothing, offering comfort to the dying man.
But her head came up, and her gaze pinned Mitsu before he could even open his mouth, carrying a
wordless command: Not now.
She was a peasant, and she’d run away, against his explicit order. But Mitsu knelt and waited.
It didn’t take long. The winter air soon finished what those injuries had begun. When Senzai
laid the man’s head down at last, Mitsu said, “I recognize him. He was one of the servants following
the patrol we saw this afternoon.”

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 Senzai’s voice remained low, as if not wanting to disturb the body’s peace. “He had angered
one of the samurai, very badly. A cruel man. I knew he would take revenge.”
“You had a vision?”
She met his eyes. “Not like you’re thinking. Not foresight or prophecy. But I understand
people.” Her gaze fell again to the dead man. “Unfortunately.”
Heedless of any defilement from touching the corpse, Senzai arranged the man’s broken
limbs more decorously, then laid her straw cloak over him and stood. Mitsu brushed the snow off
his own knees and said, “It was generous of you to give him comfort. But I have to insist that you
not vanish like that again. I thought you’d run away.”
“I’m sorry, Togashi-sama.”
He thought she was apologizing for having crept out without warning him. But when he
began to walk back to their shelter, Senzai didn’t move. Her words hung in the cold, still air, and he
realized she meant something else entirely.
His voice tightened. “I told you—I can’t allow you that choice.”
“And I can’t go with you,” she said quietly. “There are things about the Empire that I don’t
understand, and I need to. I won’t learn them if I go with you to the High House of Light.”
“You don’t know that.”
She gestured at him. “I see it in you. In every detail of how you behave. You want to keep
me safe there, and to question me until you understand. But you’ll understand nothing that way, and
you’ll stop me from doing what I must.”
“Then help me understand now,” Mitsu said through his teeth. “What must you do?”
“I don’t know.”
Lifetimes of monastic training were all that kept him from punching the nearest boulder in
frustration. “Senzai—”
“I know the truth of myself, Togashi-sama. That is what I saw, when your sister in the order
used her tattoo. But knowing myself is only part of it.” Senzai looked down at the dead man, her
hair falling to conceal her expression. “I don’t understand the Celestial Order. No—I don’t
understand the Empire. Why things are the way they are. I need to answer that question before I can
do...”
She trailed off, and Mitsu waited, hands tense. But she only shook her head, breath pluming
in a quiet sigh. “Whatever it is I’m meant to do.”

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 “We can help you,” Mitsu said. “At the High House of Light. And I have orders from my
clan champion—”
This time it was his turn not to finish the sentence. My orders.
Senzai stepped closer. “You have realized something, Togashi-sama.”
Find her—for the sake of the Empire. That was what Togashi-ue had said, the day he named
Mitsu his heir and sent him in search of Senzai. That—and nothing more.
After years of searching, he’d almost forgotten that his orders ended there. His assumptions
had filled in the rest of it—the idea that Togashi-ue meant for Mitsu not only to find Senzai, but to
bring her back to the High House of Light.
Senzai said, “The foresight of the Dragon Clan Champion is a powerful thing, but not a
perfect one. Some day that foresight will flow through you, Togashi-sama—and you will have to
make decisions about how best to use it.”
Decisions that began now, here at the feet of the Spine of the World.
The answer of a samurai should be to take Senzai with him anyway. It was possible Togashi-
ue had indeed meant for Mitsu to bring her there, and if not, then it would be easy enough to let her
go afterward. The wishes of a peasant woman didn’t outweigh the risk of disappointing his lord.
But Kazue had spoken highly of Senzai’s insight. And Mitsu was not only a samurai, but a
Dragon; he was not only a Dragon, but an ise zumi. He understood the need to follow one’s path.
Mitsu bowed slightly. “Senzai-san. I was instructed to find you, and I believe there was a
reason for that. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to that reason. Is there anything I can do to assist
you?”
The faintest hint of a smile warmed her face. “You’ve traveled the Empire, Togashi-sama,
far more than I have. Tell me: who is the most wretched person you know of, and who is the most
fortunate?”
He gave it careful consideration, even as night deepened around them and the wind sent the
fresh snow dancing through the air. I don’t understand the Celestial Order, she’d said. I don’t
understand the Empire. Why things are the way they are.
The most fortunate should be the Emperor, or someone else whose karma had raised them
to high status in this lifetime. But that wasn’t the case.
“The most wretched,” he said, “is a minor courtier in Hakayu Mura. Doji Omocha. She was
born to a good family, but lacks all talent and knows it. Her best efforts have brought her nothing

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but disgrace, for her and her family. She can’t even bring herself to ask permission to expunge her
shame through seppuku, because she lives in dread of her next incarnation, and the punishments that
await her failures. There is no moment of joy in her life, and there has not been for decades—only
fear and despair, because she cannot live up to the expectations placed on her.”
Senzai nodded. “And the most fortunate?”
“A heimin,” Mitsu said. “I don’t even know his name. He lives outside of Kōgan Mura, not
far from here. Anyone would look at his life and see nothing but hardship and suffering...yet despite
that, the man lives content. I asked him once why he was smiling, and he said that he was grateful
every day for the miracles of sun and rain, the beauty of the kami, and the hope of the future. That
would be admirable enough in any person, but to achieve such peace of mind in circumstances like
his? That man is truly blessed.”
All of Senzai’s previous bows had been mere etiquette, a peasant acknowledging the samurai
above her. This time it was sincere. “Thank you, Togashi-sama. Your words have enlightened me.”
Not like Kazue’s words had done. But he hoped it would be enough.
Mitsu shrugged out of his own straw cloak and offered it to her. “You’ll need this. Winter
isn’t over yet.”
She accepted it with gratitude. “May the Fortunes favor your path, Togashi-sama.”
“And yours, Senzai-san.”
Then Mitsu headed for the road north and the High House of Light—alone.

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611
 A time to wait, a time to strike, a time to run.
– Hare Clan saying

The monk from the Eternal Patience Monastery sat so still, wrinkled hands resting upturned on her
knees, that she might have been dead. Usagi Tsukiko, daimyō and champion of the Hare, knelt at
the opposite side of the room, waiting. Tsukiko watched all the young samurai between them for
signs of weakness—a shaking of limbs or shortness of breath. The bushi knelt silent and still in their
places, and Tsukiko was pleased. They were only waiting for the last of their number to arrive; then,
they could feast to celebrate their gempuku—their coming of age.
It was Asao, Tsukiko’s own son, who was late to the feast. She feared that his determination
to succeed would keep him in the woods until the sun sank and he had to stumble home in the dark.
Of course she would be proud if he returned like Usagi Shun had, with a hare hanging from each
fist, still kicking. Yet she accepted that he would not.
At last, a figure shuffled quietly into the room and took his place, the closest to his mother.
Tsukiko glanced to the door, where a servant waited empty-handed. No kill for Asao, then.
The monk clapped four times and began her whispered prayer. Her words were hushed, her
voice like the hiss of a breeze through long grasses. She raised her hands as servants placed a covered
dish before each waiting samurai. Then she stopped, smiled, and picked up her red-tipped
chopsticks.
Servants lifted the lids, and the young samurai were served their first meal of flesh.
“Eat,” Tsukiko told them. “And be proud to take these hare spirits into your own. You are
samurai now, and through you, these small souls may achieve a greater destiny. Let them become
part of you, blessed and purified as they are.”

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 The new samurai began their meal in silence, but Tsukiko made a point of talking to her son
as she ate, to let the others know that such was allowed.
“You have not failed,” she told him. “That you are at the feast shows you have passed your
gempuku, and you should celebrate.”
“I caught nothing,” he said.
“So you have learned the lesson, that by being fast and wary, hares are hard to catch.”
“But if I’d had my bow...”
“Any samurai can shoot a hare with a bow, any peasant can trap one, any child can chase
one down with dogs. To catch one with your bare hands—that is something only Hare hunters can
do.”
“Except I can’t.”
“And that is why Usagi Shun is my heir, and you are merely my son.”
There was no room in her clan for excuses, when there was always another samurai ready to
succeed where one failed. When Shun had brought two hares home on her gempuku, Tsukiko had
named Shun her yōjimbō at once, and her heir soon after.
“Usagi-ue,” her son asked her, after swallowing some of the meat. “How did Shun-sama
catch those hares with her bare hands?”
“Why, she knew when to wait, when to strike, and when to run,” Tsukiko said. “As all of us
must learn.” She raised her voice, so the whole room could hear. “And when do we strike?”
“We strike first!” the young samurai chorused.
Tsukiko would have made a speech, but a servant appeared at her shoulder and whispered
in her ear. Shun had returned from Maemikake at last. Tsukiko excused herself immediately, feeling
the monk’s eyes on her as she departed.

Usagi Tsukiko returned to her room to find Usagi Shun waiting for her, still in her muddied traveling
clothes. The young bushi bowed deeply.
“What news?” Tsukiko asked.
Shun glanced up, a glint of humor in her eyes, and Tsukiko realized she had let her
impatience show. There was no shame in that. She had waited long enough; Shun had been gone
almost a month.

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 “The Crab have been forced to call upon local lords to reinforce their troops on the Wall,”
Shun said. “This leaves many minor lords unable to spare bushi to protect the villages in their
domains.”
“So their territory is vulnerable,” Tsukiko said. “That could be a terrible temptation for other
clans.”
“A great temptation,” Shun agreed, “though the Great Clans have larger concerns at the
capital.”
“Everything remains unsettled?”
“The regent struggles against political opposition that claims his position is illegitimate.
Skirmishes among the Osari Plains have escalated with so many magistrates attempting to maintain
order in the capital, but the Great Clans fight among themselves. Any troubles this far from Otosan
Uchi are beneath their notice for the moment.”
Tsukiko allowed herself a smile. She had waited for so long.
“And what of the rumors I asked you to look into?” she asked.
“I only heard one rumor regarding Bramble Thorn Village,” Shun said. “A mahō-tsukai
escaped Maemikake and fled in that direction, but that was several years ago. Kuni Witch Hunters
eventually found a twisted corpse they believed to be their quarry, who had succumbed to the perils
of his own dark arts.”
Anywhere as large and busy as Maemikake was full of empty rumors, obsolete news, and
groundless fears. This wasn’t quite the rumor Tsukiko had been hoping for, but it would do.
“The Witch Hunters lack our patience,” she said. “They think the matter resolved, as it suits
them to think so. Who’s to say if that body was mahō-tsukai or victim? You have done well to bring
this rumor to my attention. We must look into it.”
“Are you concerned there might yet be a mahō-tsukai in the village?” Shun asked. “The
rumor is old...”
“I am concerned,” Tsukiko said, “that with the Crab always so focused on their Wall, they
neglect threats within the Empire. We have a duty to help them drive out evil, by investigating
rumors just like this one. We must find out if there is any truth in it.”
“Of course, my lord. I will prepare to leave at once.”
“It is late, and the gempuku feast is underway. We will leave tomorrow, together, after a
night’s comfort. I wish to see this village for myself.”

614
They set off early the next day with a single guntai squad on horseback, the fresh samurai joking
they could go faster on foot. The horses were for show; the beasts raised the samurai above villagers
in more ways than one.
Shun rode on one side of her, in patient silence. Asao, whose red eyes betrayed the sake he
had drunk the night before, rode on the other. He asked many questions: Why did she give credence
to this rumor? Why seek trouble outside of their borders? Wouldn’t the Kuni deal with any threats
out there? Would the Hiruma accept their assistance?
Tsukiko tried to answer him, but what could she say? That there was a time to wait, but this
was not it: she could not afford to wait. That there were more mouths to feed every year. That she
was still the swiftest, but her hair was greying and she didn’t know how long it would be before
Shun outpaced her, before people said the champion was fast for her age. That this might be her last
chance to lead her clan to victory, to increase its territory, to earn the glory her potential had
promised when she caught her own hares at her gempuku. That she was tired of waiting, and the
time had come to strike.
She could not tell her son these things, and so she spoke of duty. That was something he
could understand.
Bramble Thorn Village lived up to its name. The road approaching soon became a narrow,
overgrown trail. Tsukiko feared the brambles might tear the hides of the horses as they passed. She
sent Asao and Shun ahead on foot to cut them back, and to scout the way.
They returned with confirmation that the village was unprotected. So like the Crab, to send
all their warriors to their Wall and forget that there might be enemies at home—that evil could
strike anywhere.
They rode single file along the winding path, which opened onto a sunny valley. Villagers
stood knee-deep in the murky water of the rice paddies, pausing in their work as they heard the
horses. The peasants bowed as the samurai rode by.
The village itself was large, with two kura for storage that Tsukiko intended to inspect as
soon as she could. The houses seemed in good repair, well thatched. She heard the cluck of chickens
somewhere near.
As they rode past the first houses, a young man came hurrying to receive them.

615
 “Greetings, samurai!” he called, bowing low before them. “I am Jun, the leader here. How
may we serve you?”
Tsukiko put up a hand and the riders stopped as one.
“It is we who are here to serve you,” she said. “I am daimyō of the Usagi. We have heard
there may be evil hiding in your midst—a practitioner of blood magic. We have come to find and
remove that evil.”
Trembling, the village leader prostrated himself on the ground.
“Whatever we can do to help you, we will do! But please, spare the village and its people.”
It was bold of him to beg, but why did he think his village was in danger? He may have
heard that whole villages were burned to purge them, but that was not the way of the Hare.
Tsukiko dismounted and bade the leader rise. Jun was very young for one in such a position.
He had a delicate face, clear healthy skin, and broad muscular shoulders from working in the fields.
Another sign the village was prosperous.
“We will stay and wait,” Tsukiko said. “Evil cannot hide its face for long.”
“Thank you, honored daimyō,” Jun said, a look of wonder and gratitude on his face as though
she had just spared his life. “We have rice for you and your samurai, and we can tend to your horses.”
Villagers hurried to take the horses as the samurai dismounted. Tsukiko had her party search
the village before accepting a meal, however, looking everywhere for signs of mahō. It was the
sacred duty of her clan to remain vigilant, and even the new samurai knew well what to look for,
what questions to ask. They would have the villagers raise their arms and would check their limbs
for cuts. They would carefully examine any scrolls or books they found. Then, after dark, they would
watch the village and its surroundings in shifts, in case any foul, undead thing rose to disturb the
night.
While her samurai sought mahō, Tsukiko surveyed the village for other purposes. She
walked around the perimeter and inspected the fields. She counted the chickens and peered into the
storehouses. She also found a suitable place for her samurai to make camp, though Jun gave her the
use of his own house. It was there that Shun found her, alone.
“No signs of mahō, that I can find,” Shun said. “Perhaps there was nothing to the rumor after
all. My apologies. I fear I have wasted your time with this journey.”
“Not at all,” Tsukiko said. “Better to be sure, and we are ever vigilant.”
Shun smiled. “And they have stores here to feed a village three times this size.”

616
 It was true: the village was thriving. The storehouses were full, the fields and orchard fruitful,
yet their rice tax had not been increased for years. Jun had admitted that villagers often took surplus
to the markets in Maemikake, but there had been no strangers in the village for some time. There
was no evidence of mahō here, but that did not mean the visit was a waste.

They were in the village three days before a Hiruma patrol came to challenge them. Perhaps a
villager had been sent as messenger and the Hare were not as welcome as they thought, or maybe
the Hiruma were more suspicious than she gave them credit for.
“I am Hiruma Kenzou,” announced the gunsō, sitting fully armored upon his horse. “This
village is Hiruma territory. Who seeks to occupy it?”
“We are friends, Hiruma-san,” Tsukiko said, coming forward on foot to meet him. He did
not dismount, but removed his mask and peered down at her. She kept her eyes on him as she bowed.
“I am Usagi Tsukiko, daimyō and champion of the Hare, and I am here to root out the evil of mahō.”
“Explain yourself, Usagi-ue,” he barked, still looking down at her. “Why do you seek mahō
here?”
“I heard rumor that a practitioner escaped a Witch Hunter in Maemikake and was never
found. That a mahō-tsukai came this way and may have even settled here.”
“What rumor is this? I heard no such rumor,” the Hiruma said. “And since when does a
rumor warrant an occupation?”
“I must maintain control of this village only until I can be sure it is purged of any evil, of
any danger to the Empire. You know we Hare take our roles as watchers very seriously. What the
Kuni hunters miss, we take the time to find.”
“And if there is nothing to find?”
In a sudden, unforeseen moment, a chicken burst out from between two houses and darted
across the path between her samurai and the Hiruma. One raw Crab recruit reached for his weapon.
Shun leapt between him and Tsukiko, and in a flick drew her sword and pierced one of the
Crab’s exposed eyes, spraying blood.
For a moment, no one moved but the dead man, who collapsed with a clatter to the ground.
Then, the Hiruma gunsō replaced his mask. It was too late to find another way.
“Strike first!” Tsukiko shouted, drawing her sword and leaping at the gunsō. She landed
behind him on the horse and drove her blade up under his armpit before pushing him to the ground.

617
Her samurai fought around her, and she heard Shun’s familiar grunts and cries as one mounted
samurai after another fell. With Shun at her side, Tsukiko felt protected, invincible. She kicked
backward, arcing her leg to jab her foot up into the face of the Crab behind her. She heard the crunch
of his skull even through his helmet, and he crumpled, sliding from his horse.
The horse beneath her lost its nerve and bolted, throwing her unprepared into the fray. She
lost her balance for a moment, narrowly dodging a hammer blow that nearly crushed her. Then Shun
was there, preventing the enemy from surrounding them, and more Hiruma fell. The Hare would
win; she could taste the victory already. As Tsukiko leapt toward the last Crab rider, who turned in
an attempt to flee, a sudden force and sharp pain in the back of her thigh sent her sprawling in the
dirt.

Shun carried her into the shade of the village leader’s house. Jun was there, cowering in the darkness
beyond the doorway. Tsukiko saw his eyes bright in the dark, heard Shun demand he find something
to bind the wound.
“We have to stop the bleeding,” Shun said, as something tightened around Tsukiko’s thigh
and ignited the pain. Tsukiko gasped a breath, but made no other sound. The pain would not beat
her; she was strong.
Shun looked into her eyes. “You will live, Tsukiko-ue,” she whispered. “You will live.”
“But will I run?” Tsukiko asked, already knowing the answer. She might walk again, if she
was lucky, but she had been robbed of her speed.
Shun only hesitated a moment. “You will run,” she said. “We will find a shugenja to heal
you, or a skilled artisan to replace the limb if we must.”
“And how long will that take? I cannot stop now; we have the village...”
She wanted more, not just for herself but for the Hare. This small victory was not enough:
They needed to consolidate their position before the Hiruma patrol was missed, summon more bushi,
and press on.
Her sword, the sword of the Hare champion, was still in her hand. A Kaiu blade, gifted to
the clan’s founder and passed from one champion to the next. She lifted it toward Shun, loosening
her grip.

618
 “Take this,” she said. “And take command. Whatever happens to me, the Hare must have a
worthy champion. Congratulate our warriors and prepare them. This will be the first of many
victories. It is time now to strike.”
Shun nodded, taking the sword reverently in her hands.
“Watch her,” Shun called to Jun, and she left to do her daimyō’s bidding.
Tsukiko lay in the darkness with pain like a fog in her mind, preventing her from thinking,
leaving only raw feeling and a deep, dark regret.
The soft features of Jun’s face appeared before her in the flickering gloom of the peasant
house. He stared down at her, as though he were examining the thoughts inside her skull. She lay
rigid, gritting her teeth against the pain.
“I can help you,” he said. “If you’ll let me.”
“No one can help me now,” she said. “Not in time. Shun must lead.”
His face loomed closer. Never had Tsukiko felt so helpless, so humiliated.
“I can help you,” he said, a strange sort of smile passing over his lips. “This is a serious
wound, a terrible setback. If you’ll let me, I can take the pain away, and make you stronger even
than you were before.”
She did not ask how; she did not care. She only knew she had lost her last chance to lead her
clan to greatness, and she could not live the rest of her life mourning what she might have achieved.
“Do it,” she spat.
He wore a definite smile now, wide and thin across his face like a slit. He muttered words
she did not know, and she thought of the monk whispering prayers and how this felt entirely,
horribly, different. His voice seemed to thicken the air, his words like a cloud of insects, a buzzing
in numbed ears, irritating and oppressive.
The pain sharpened, intensified, flared in the darkness. She gasped out a loud cry, but then
the pain was gone. One moment, pain had consumed her body; the next, she felt calm, strong, and
whole.
Tsukiko rose to her feet, and the village leader grinned at her from the ground, where he lay
bleeding from his own thigh. She stepped away from his pooling blood. Jun hissed at her through
his teeth.

619
 “Now,” he said, “know this: the kansen don’t forget. If I whisper my desire, or I die, they
return your wound to you, and more. Do what you like to keep the Crab away, but do not allow your
samurai to interfere in my affairs. Or you will regret it.”
Before she could answer, Shun returned, wearing the sword as though it belonged to her.
“Usagi-ue, are you...”
“It is not as bad as it first seemed,” Tsukiko said, cutting her off.
Shun said nothing, only looked from her daimyō to the wounded peasant on the floor, who
cackled softly to himself.
“Return my sword,” Tsukiko said. Shun stared at her as though etiquette no longer applied,
as though she were nothing but a monster to be assessed and dealt with.
Tsukiko stood firm, confident she hid her fear well. Shun’s loyalty was absolute, but mahō
was the very thing she had been raised to purge. Shun reached for the sword slowly, her hand coming
to rest along its shadowed hilt. Tsukiko waited to see which end would be offered.
Shun hesitated, then spun on her heels and ran from the hut. She had always been the perfect
student, had always known when to run.
Asao was not perfect, but he was obedient. Perhaps he would make a suitable heir after all.

620
At least the tea was good. A minor point in the Kaiu lands’ favor, but at this point Asako Tsuki
would accept any comfort she could find. The weeks of travel had been one trial after the next. The
sprawling tea farms and marshy rice paddies of the Quiet Wind Plain had been an oasis among the
dingy, unwelcoming Crab provinces. Her assignment, while lacking prestige, could raise Tsuki’s
position in the clan. But truth be told, she didn’t want to be here. The tether to her heart was being
pulled, far north to her cozy little nook in the Meiyoko District library, a small desk littered with
melted wax, a window overlooking the Bay of the Golden Sun, and a scroll containing the ninth-
century biography of the folk hero Shiba Katsue, whose precious text faded a little more each day,
begging for transcription onto paper that wasn’t deteriorating.
I should be there, not here, she thought, trying not to imagine how many such transcriptions
would greet her when she finally returned. It could be days before she caught up.
The woman before her cleared her throat, and Tsuki brought herself back to her present
surroundings: an austere room in a Kaiu tower in a small keep whose name she’d already forgotten.
“I regret that I cannot approve your request,” Kaiu Hitsuko said. She was a stark-looking
woman with brown eyes and faint sideburns, and a smile that never touched her eyes. “Even if we
knew the Kuni daimyō’s current location, travel through the southern provinces has been restricted
lately. I cannot amend your traveling papers. Perhaps it is best that you just go home.”
Tsuki exchanged a look with the young Shiba beside her. The yōjimbō didn’t seem
particularly surprised, but then he had predicted this outcome only hours before. She could
practically hear him crowing about it already.
Tsuki set down her tea. “I would prefer to hear this from Kaiu Shihobu-sama.”

621
 From behind the Kaiu woman came a barking laugh. Its source was perhaps the hairiest man
Tsuki had ever seen, with a carpet of fur peeking out of his kimono collar and a thick black caterpillar
spread unbroken across his brow. “As if the Kaiu daimyō had time for you! Perhaps you haven’t
noticed, but there is a war—”
His mouth snapped shut at the abrupt rap of Hitsuko’s fan against the floor. “Our sister is
indisposed,” she calmly said. “It is only out of respect for the folding of our families that I have
interrupted my own work to meet you, Asako-san.”
Tsuki had counted on as much. After having been rebuffed by the Kuni, she had hoped that
the pending marriage between the Kaiu daimyō and an Asako scholar could be used to her
advantage. It did confirm her suspicions. The Crab did not want her “bothering” their leaders. They
likely didn’t want her here at all.
Which makes two of us, she thought.
But it didn’t change her duty.
“My champion’s orders leave little interpretation, Hitsuko-san. I must deliver my message
to the Master of Earth. Since he is currently tethered to the honorable Kuni daimyō, I see no other
way except to seek an audience.”
“The solution is simple,” Hitsuko remarked. “Tell me your message, and when they return,
I will see it delivered to him.”
Nice try, thought Tsuki. But there was no chance she would convey her champion’s words
to a hatamoto of a war-thirsty clan: that the Void Master’s seat on the Council of Elemental Masters
was now vacant, the Master of Air’s health had taken a sudden dire turn, and with the elemental
imbalance spreading, the Phoenix were in desperate need of leaders. There was too much blessed
jade in Phoenix shrines to admit vulnerability. The Crab were not above taking what they wanted
when they thought they could. It had been done before.
“I fear that is impossible,” she said.
Hitsuko said nothing. For a time, there was only the sound of Yukiti, the hairy one, chewing.
Tea leaves, most likely. Tsuki knew this to be a common habit of the Kaiu family. They thought it
gave them bursts of energy, although Tsuki’s experimentation with the practice over the last week
had yielded no such results. It was more likely that the energizing properties of dried tea leaves
required hot steeping in order to work, and she postulated that mere chewing—
They were staring at her. She chided herself for daydreaming, then straightened her back.

622
 “In that case, I must ask a favor,” she said. “Since you would have me tell my champion that
the Crab cannot produce the Master of Earth, I would ask that you dictate your reasoning and allow
me to put it to scroll, in your own words.” She paused. “To prevent a misunderstanding.”
It was not quite an accusation. She hadn’t quite implied that by denying her, they had
declared Isawa Tadaka their hostage.
Histuko’s eyes narrowed. “How sincere.”
The hairy man slapped a thick palm onto the floor. The room thundered. “How like a
northerner to make such arrogant demands! It is the important work of Kuni-ue and others that keeps
untold horrors on the other side of the Wall, and yet northerners would waste the time of their
guardians. They would best remember that the only reason they enjoy their opulent lives and petty
quarrels is that they are paid for with Crab blood. One might believe the Phoenix cared for the fate
of the Empire if they had bothered to honor the Great Bear’s requests!”
Tsuki rose. Both Kaiu leaned forward, Yukiti’s bearded mouth spreading into a grin. The
burly man was not the oaf he seemed; he was baiting her, hoping she would respond in kind, giving
him the excuse to resolve the issue with a fight, as he clearly wanted.
Instead, she bowed.
“My apologies,” Tsuki said. “I spoke in haste and without due consideration. I will leave
you now and trouble you no more.” She turned and made for the door, resisting the temptation to
glance at the stunned expressions of the Kaiu, her yōjimbō following suit.
On their way to the stables, Tsuki sensed his disappointment. Shiba Koetsu had probably
hoped for a chance to further the reputation of the Feathers within Branches school of swordplay.
As the hostler fetched their horses, Koetsu finally spoke. “What will you tell Shiba-ue?”
“We are not going home,” she said. “We go south.”
She met his surprise with some satisfaction. He was younger than she by at least a decade,
and yet he always seemed to assume he knew more than she. “Hitsuko said that travel is restricted
in the southern provinces, which suggests Kuni Yori is south of us. She couldn’t amend our traveling
papers, which means he is in a province where the Kaiu and Hiruma cannot permit travel. Based on
Crab traveling law, that suggests he is in Hida lands. Finally, Yukiti said Kuni Yori is performing
important work, suggesting he is seeing to his duties. There are only five shrines tended by the Kuni
in Hida lands. That narrows his location down to one of those five shrines.” She smiled. “So now,
we go find him.” And if I am wrong, it wastes no less time than simply waiting here!

623
 Koetsu rubbed his neck. “How do you know all that?”
“I read it, Shiba-san.” She allowed herself a chuckle. He’d learn eventually. Librarians
weren’t to be trifled with.
“This will upset the Hida,” he finally said.
Definitely. But that’s your problem, Shiba-san. “The objections of the Crab do not concern
me. My duty is to find Isawa Tadaka.” And the sooner I do that, the sooner we can go home!
At last he nodded. “Perhaps such deductive skills will find their way into your novel.”
She hoped so. The Celebrated Cases of Magistrate Yuzo was in its eighth draft, perpetually
unfinished in scattered sheets of prose and notes beneath her desk. Just the suggestion spiked her
homesickness. She wanted only to return to her draft, to finish her transcription projects and resume
her writing.
She could have finished it already, of course. But it wasn’t ready. It had to be just right.
The hostler’s return bought her back to the present with a sigh. Another reason to finish here.
As Koetsu worked out how they would avoid the road patrols, Tsuki watched the darkening sky in
the direction she imagined was home.

The first three shrines yielded nothing. Tsuki paid her resects at each, met with the resident Kuni,
and, when they confirmed their ignorance of their daimyō’s location, continued on her way, keeping
to trade roads, avoiding patrols. The shrine attendants asked surprisingly few questions, apparently
accepting that they were mere travelers, taking for granted that they were allowed to be there. But
then, Tsuki supposed, what reason did they have to assume she hadn’t been questioned already at
the roadside way stations? Like most priests and shrine keepers, they were guileless and simple,
having given themselves completely to worship of the Fortunes.
She therefore found it ominous when she discovered the fourth shrine completely
abandoned.
“No living quarters,” Koetsu reported. “If there are shrine keepers, priests, or a resident
shugenja, I am not sure where they would stay. I’d guess this place is abandoned.” Even so, his hand
never drifted far from his katana’s hilt.
“They could be staying in the honden,” Tsuki supposed. But to her knowledge, only the
Kaito really ever did that; few non-shugenja knew how to reside in a shrine’s sanctuary without
offending the enshrined spirit.

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 She didn’t like it. The cleaning fountain was well kept, the grounds clean, the shimenawa
ropes recently replaced. Yet there was no one here. It held the silence of a tomb, no sacred song or
bell to break the pall. It was also the fourth shrine they’d visited so far. That made it unlucky.
But she couldn’t leave a seemingly abandoned shrine alone. She had to investigate. That was
the role of the Phoenix. She took such duties seriously.
“I’m going in,” she said. “Stay here.”
He started to protest, but Koetsu knew as well as she that bushi were forbidden to cross the
threshold of the inner sanctum. Were this a shrine to Bishamon or Hachiman, perhaps an exception
could be made. But she couldn’t tell from looking who the enshrined kami was, or which Fortune
blessed these grounds. Perhaps a local spirit?
Normally shrine keepers would be sweeping and making offerings, but the shrine’s main
structure was lifeless. On bare feet, Tsuki made her way to the honden, which held the shintai, where
the spirit resides. She bypassed blessed shimenawa ropes and rolled aside heavy screens. A locked
iron door briefly stopped her, but she foiled the padlock with an improvised paper shim, a trick her
delinquent sister once showed her. With that obstacle bypassed, she braced herself to stumble into
a startled priest or angry shugenja, excuses at the ready.
There was no inner sanctum. Tsuki’s heart stopped at the mouth of a spiral staircase. It led
down. She descended carefully into the dark. Groping the walls, she briefly considered the offerings
in her satchel, but she was hesitant to invoke the kami for light this far south. She’d read that
invoking the kami near the Shadowlands could attract spirits far less benevolent, ones she’d rather
not draw. She would not risk that.
The stairs abruptly ended. It was pitch black. Her next step kicked a metal lantern with a
wince-inducing crash. When no angry voices arose, she blindly searched for the vessel, then lit it
with her striker.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find. But it wasn’t this. Shelves of charts and
papers lined the walls. Odd trophies—skulls, horns, scales, and a dried-up barbed tongue—sat as
paperweights or on display. The lantern light glinted off dozens of crystalline glass bottles, some so
old they were turning purple. Contained within were liquids and shriveled parts Tsuki could not
identify.
Grimly it dawned on her that the shrine was a lie, a facade for a personal laboratory. But to
what end?

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 Stamps carved with Kuni Yori’s personal emblem confirmed the lab as his. A cot with neatly
folded clothes atop it stood beside a nightstand holding Kabuki makeup. Discovering this room felt
like a violation, as though she were peeking into his life.
More details slowly came into focus, and with them came a sinking sensation. Some of the
bottles contained a thick liquid, brown or red, nearly black. A coppery scent hung in the air. There
was a human skeleton in a pile in one corner. Hesitantly, Tsuki crept forward and peered closely at
the scattered bones. It had been a long time since she’d studied the illustrations in Asako Michi’s
Notes on the Human Body, but it seemed to her that the finger bones, and perhaps others, were
missing.
And then the light glinted off the implement on the center desk: a bone handle fitted onto a
length of dull steel, curved abruptly with an inward-facing blade. It was designed to inflict
superficial cuts onto the forearm. A tool for drawing blood.
For mahō-tsukai.
Tsuki stared at the blade for many shallow breaths. Surely there was a good reason it was
here. Yori must have seized it from a criminal mahō-tsukai. He was a Witch Hunter, after all. Yes.
That explained everything...
Beyond were a number of small scrolls, bound in polished leather. Her stomach twisted at
the visible hair follicles. Human skin.
She didn’t open them. She didn’t need to. She could imagine what they contained.
A brief search turned up Yori’s journal. She could only glance at the scratchy notes before
dropping it with disgust. It may as well have been a confession. Yori was drawing upon kansen,
kami corrupted by the Shadowlands. That was mahō. Blood magic. Forbidden.
And the scrolls were written by his own hand.
The room swam beneath her racing heart. The Kuni daimyō was a mahō-tsukai. And his lair,
this laboratory, was beneath a shrine to kansen, to corruption. How many others in his family were
complicit in this? How many knew?
All at once, she realized what duty required. She took a steadying breath and whispered a
silent prayer.
Bishamon, grant me strength.
Tearing a sleeve, she wrapped up the scrolls without touching them. These went into her
satchel. The wrapped sorcerer’s dagger went into her undergarment. The journal, the most damning

626
evidence, she tucked into her obi. This would be more than enough to present to the Council of
Elemental Masters. She had to tell them of the Kuni’s corruption.
What about Tadaka? She cast the thought aside. If Kuni Yori was a mahō-tsukai, then the
Master of Earth was surely dead. And if not, then he would prefer she inform the remaining council
members over rescuing him. Exposing and ending the corruption was more urgent. Whatever
Tadaka’s fate, he’d have to meet it alone.
There was plenty of lantern oil among Yori’s possessions. She dumped it on every surface
she could find. She overturned shelves and soaked the papers. She cast down the bottles and beakers
until the fumes stung her eyes. She paused only to pray for the soul of the human remains. As she
left, she threw the lantern into the room and turned away from the flash.
The crisp air was a blessing to her lungs when she emerged. She made for the cleansing
fountain. She felt as though she’d been rolling in filth. “Koetsu, we’re leaving. Kuni Yori is a heretic.
We must inform the council.”
She was halfway to the fountain before she saw the line of samurai, armor glinting, weapons
drawn. Four Crab on horseback, bows drawn. Three others on foot, iron clubs held ready. A bound
and gagged Shiba Koetsu slung across a horse’s back, his weapons gone. The Crab frowned at the
pillar of smoke rising from the shrine.
“Asako Tsuki,” their leader growled. “You are coming with us.”
Perhaps the other shrines’ attendants had not been so guileless after all.

The guards had called it a “waiting room.” It was furnished as such, and they’d even provided her
with tea. But Tsuki knew this was a holding cell, albeit one reserved for those of samurai status. She
would not be thrown into a dungeon and chained to the wall like a peasant, but neither would she
be granted freedom. Outside the sliding doors, she could see the silhouettes of two guards. The view
from the window overlooked the wrong side of the Kaiu Wall, a bone-shattering drop into
Earthquake Fish Bay.
They’d taken her satchel, her offerings, even her sandals. They’d taken the journal, too. But
they hadn’t taken her clothing, so they hadn’t found the dagger. She could feel it flat against her
belly, beneath her obi. When she got out of here, she at least still had that as evidence.

627
 Chirps from the nightingale floor. The shadows parting. Tsuki sat up on her cushion. Finally,
the Crab Clan Champion had answered her summons. Even though she was their prisoner, the Crab
were honor bound to observe the demands of Shiba Tsukune’s representative.
Tsuki did not wait for the door to fully slide aside. “Great Bear, I must protest the treatment
of—”
Her words died on her lips. It was not the Great Bear, but his son. Hida Yakamo strode into
the room with the gait of the weary, his long mustache framing severe features. His head nearly
touched the ceiling as he crossed his arms, the guards closing the door behind him. At his hip, a
tetsubō swung ominously.
She’d heard stories about Yakamo. He’d crushed the head of the Mirumoto hatamoto’s
brother over a minor insult. They hadn’t been able to stop him.
“Where is Koetsu?” she managed.
“He is meeting the Fortunes,” Yakamo replied.
She blinked, uncomprehending. They’d...killed him? Just like that?
“So,” Yakamo grumbled. “You’re the mahō-tsukai who sabotaged Kuni-ue’s lab?”
His words raked through her like icy daggers. “You’re wrong! Kuni Yori is mahō-tsukai!
Ask your guards! They have his journal! He used human remains to—”
He stared down at her as one might a cockroach. “Lies.”
As cold dread washed over her, realization finally dawned on Tsuki. Evidence of Yori’s
corruption would forever blight the Kuni name and bring a stain upon the honor of the Crab. Yakamo
could not allow that.
She pushed words through a rapidly drying mouth. “I—I demand an audience with—”
Yakamo slammed his tetsubō into the floor. “You will demand nothing!” He leaned forward.
Tsuki felt his hot breath. “You torched a Kuni shrine and sabotaged the Kuni daimyō’s work! Did
you think burning his records would bury your crimes?”
“You’re not listening,” she protested. But her head swam. Was he truly fooled by Yori? Or
was he covering up the Kuni daimyō’s misdeeds? She wasn’t sure.
“Fortunes know how far you’ve set him back, how many Crab will pay for the knowledge
lost.” He straightened again. “Fortunately his work can continue elsewhere.”

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 Elsewhere? How many labs did he have? Her stomach sank into her knees. Of course, a
daimyō would have more than one lab. Perhaps mahō artifacts were scattered throughout the Crab
provinces.
Her eyes flicked to his tetsubō, its sharp jade studs. If he was going to kill her, why did he
not just get it over with?
Yakamo followed her gaze, then looked back at her. “Not yet,” he said. “First, I want to give
you some advice, little bird.” He knelt, a mountain hunched over her. “The Kuni will arrive soon to
ask their questions. Who your cohorts are. Who you are working for. Where they are hiding. That
sort of thing. My advice is to tell them. Hold nothing back. It will be easier for you that way.”
His words chilled her bones. They were going to torture her. They wanted information and
to punish her. They would do both.
She wasn’t a mahō-tsukai, but what did that matter? She would either break and lie,
admitting to corruption and disgracing her entire line, or she would tell a disregarded truth and be
tortured to death. And those who died by torture never went to Yomi, the Realm of Blessed
Ancestors. The pain, the anger, and the futility all made that impossible. Tōshigoku was their
destination, the Realm of Slaughter. It was not just her life at stake. If she died this way, it could
cost her very soul.
What choice did she have?
As he made for the door, all Tsuki could think about was her collection of notes, the eighth
draft of The Celebrated Cases of Magistrate Yuzo. It could have been published by now, had she
been willing to accept its imperfections. But now she would never finish that book. She would never
finish anything.
She would never again sit at her little desk overlooking the sea. Never again smell the musk
of aging paper. Never again trade made-up tales of folk heroes with her friends, invent fanciful
romances between historic figures, sneak a moment to absorb her transcribed stories for herself.
Yesterday, it had seemed she had all the time in the world. How foolish she had been. She should
never have waited. She should have lived...
The dagger. She remembered it then, pressing against her flank. The bone could be an
offering. The kami would come to her aid. So what if she was close to the Shadowlands? She could
resist its call! Now was the moment, while the brute’s back was turned, before the guards knew what
was happening. All she had to do was draw the dagger, whisper her prayers, and—

629
 No. She let the temptation fall. Never. These fates are better than falling to corruption. I am
a Phoenix. I will trust the Fortunes, and bow to—
A cold wind blew against her cheek and extinguished the lantern. The only light now came
from the setting sun outside.
Outside the open window.
The open window.
Reflexively her eyes darted to the round portal, then back to Yakamo. But he’d turned one
last time just before the door, and his eyes had followed hers. Comprehension washed over his face,
then a hint of urgency. He was calculating, trying to remember if they’d taken all her offerings.
“That way is death,” he said.
He was right. A fall into the watery bay from this height would be like smashing into stone.
No sane person would try it. She wouldn’t survive.
She didn’t care.
She bolted. He crossed the room like a thunderbolt. She used her momentum to pull herself
through the window frame.
He grabbed her hakama and yanked. The garment unfurled in his grasp. She slipped from it.
And she fell like a fluttering arrow.
She closed her eyes. Please.
The water, like stone against her back.
Her lungs, emptied.
Then darkness.

Tsuki shivered in wet silk as she hugged her knees beneath the wooden bridge, sinking into
moldering foliage. Each breath was like fire. She was certain her ribs were broken, or at least
cracked. But the water kami had spared her the worst, without offerings. Her invisible allies—they
had not abandoned her. She would need to thank them properly. If she lived.
Above, she heard the stomps of Crab guards, their shouting. They found the dagger she’d
dropped in the fall. They knew she was close by. Alive or dead, it would only be a matter of time
before they discovered her.

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 She gritted her teeth against a sneeze. Her head pounded, her eyes burned. She tried not to
think about what she had read about the waters near the Shadowlands, to wonder if it were also true
for the waters of the bay. She breathed hot air onto her goose-pimpled skin.
She had to get a message to the Phoenix. But how? She had nothing to offer the kami, and
even a minor invocation might attract kansen.
They’d find her if she stayed here. But where else could she go? Not the castle. She’d never
sneak through. Not the bay. They were searching it.
Not the Shadowlands. Please. Not there.
She rocked back and forth. Not the Shadowlands. I can’t. I can’t.
The voices grew louder. Above, the stomping increased with the shadows between the
cracks. She tried to think of something, anything. But all she could picture was her little desk
overlooking the sea.
I didn’t even want to come here, she thought as her eyes grew wet. I didn’t want to do this.
I just want to go home.

631
It began with a request for paper.
A simple request, one that Chiari delivered without giving it much thought. But the heimin
servant stammered and shot a pleading look at her companion, and although the other woman said
she would see to it right away, Chiari could hear the bravado of a lie.
They were servants in the Imperial Palace. And yet they didn’t know where to find paper.
It might have been a calculated insult. The Scorpion ascendancy over the Imperial Court was
complete, and they held no love for Kitsuki-trained courtiers, who—depending on temperament—
saw ferreting out Scorpion secrets as something ranging from a sacred calling to the most
entertaining challenge around. Someone, perhaps even Bayushi Kachiko herself, might have given
orders to assign the least competent servants to assist Chiari in her diplomatic duties.
Except that the next morning Chiari saw another peasant stop halfway down the veranda and
look around in confusion, then turn and retrace his steps. Her own path took her more or less in the
same direction, and as she passed the room the man had entered, she heard him ask someone where
the lantern oil was kept.
After that, Chiari began to pay attention.
Messages and tea trays that took too long to arrive, or went to the wrong place. Samurai who
had been resident in the Imperial Palace for many years complaining that someone had forgotten
that they preferred cold tea with their breakfast, or hated the scent of camellia. Mistake after mistake,
none of them large, but all of them pointing to the same conclusion:
A surprising number of the servants in the palace were new to their jobs.

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 The first layer of truth. But as the Kitsuki taught their investigators, each answer begat more
questions.
Why new servants?
And where had the old ones gone?

Doji Azumamaro was a predictable man. When he had time off from his duties, he invariably made
his way out into Otosan Uchi, to the House of Morning’s Fragrance.
This was not the finest teahouse in the capital by any stretch, and at first Chiari wondered if
there were some deeper significance to his choice. Espionage, perhaps. Azumamaro certainly
appeared to be one of the most boring men ever to grace the Imperial bureaucracy, carrying out his
work in the Bureau of Palace Upkeep with neither distinction nor demerit. He’d been there for years,
rising very slowly to the position of third assistant director, and was the kind of person everyone
forgot even existed. Which was, for a spy, ideal.
But as in everything else, Chiari found that Azumamaro’s choice of teahouse was entirely
boring. He was conducting an unremarkable affair with the owner’s nephew, a young man with a
sweet disposition and passable beauty. Looking into the nephew, Chiari learned that he had briefly
been a servant in the palace three years previously, which was where Azumamaro had met him.
Nothing pointed at any hidden game.
Which suited her just fine. Chiari arranged for an errand to a nearby incense shop, and
stopped at the House of Morning’s Fragrance on her way back.
It was hardly her usual milieu, but at least the tea was drinkable. No self-respecting Doji
would put up with less, not for the charms of a peasant of only passable beauty. Chiari sipped it and
nibbled at some fried tofu, waiting for her quarry to show up.
Relatively few samurai frequented this place, so Azumamaro noticed her the moment he
walked in, and came over to greet her.
“You, I believe, are one of the new Dragon diplomats,” he said.
Chiari introduced herself and invited him to sit with her. Azumamaro accepted, and pleasant
but tedious small talk ensued. The tedium didn’t bother Chiari: like many bureaucrats of long
standing, Azumamaro had a habit of constantly mentioning things that had recently changed, where
“recent” might mean anything within the last five years.
Which gave her the opening she needed.

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 “It seems like a great many things have changed, quite recently,” she said.
There was a certain tone of voice that signaled a pointed and leading comment. Azumamaro
was competent enough to recognize it. “Changed for the better or worse, Kitsuki-san?”
She laughed lightly. “If this is for the better, I shudder to think about what the palace was
like beforehand. A shocking number of the servants seem barely to know what they are doing.”
“Ah, yes.” Azumamaro sipped his tea. “I’m afraid many of them are new to their positions.
They have all worked elsewhere before, of course—we would not assign people entirely without
experience—but the Imperial Palace itself is unfamiliar to them.”
Chiari sighed and put down her last piece of tofu as if she’d lost her appetite. “They may
have experience, but I wonder if it taught them anything.” She suddenly covered her mouth in
embarrassment. “Forgive me, Doji-san. I meant no insult to you.”
He took no offense. “I oversee the servants, yes, but it was Bayushi Sōtatsu who selected
them.”
“Really?” Chiari wished briefly for a fan, but to hide her face now would be too obvious.
“I’m sure he had his... reasons for choosing them.”
Azumamaro’s position might put him in the stagnant outer waters of the Imperial
bureaucracy, well away from the swift-flowing currents of court, but the Crane’s loss of influence
to the Scorpion stung them all. He was all too ready to go along with her suggestion that the minister
of the Imperial Household might have filled the palace with spies. “He was following the orders of
the Imperial Advisor herself.”
If she’d been holding a fan, she might have dropped it. “Bayushi Kachiko involved herself
with such a lowly task?”
“After the Emperor’s death,” Azumamaro said, nodding. “She said they were all defiled by
the impurity it caused. She dismissed them the very next morning. It is to the minister’s credit that
he was able to replace them so quickly; otherwise it would have been chaos in the palace.”
Chiari couldn’t quite tell whether he meant that comment to be an acidic hint that the
Scorpion had their spies lined up and waiting, or genuine praise for how well Sōtatsu had navigated
a difficult moment. Conceivably both, she thought.
A man like Azumamaro survived in the bureaucracy by doing his work just well enough that
it wasn’t worth replacing him, and by adapting himself to the whims of whoever headed his ministry.
He might wonder about spies, but it would go no further.

634
 Chiari, on the other hand, was an investigator.
The divided curtains that separated the tearoom from the kitchen parted to let a young man
through—Azumamaro’s lover. The bureaucrat made his apologies and departed for a room upstairs;
the young man cleared away the dishes, then followed after not quite enough time had passed to be
discreet.
But Chiari remained where she was, thinking. Simply a grab at power as soon as the
opportunity arose? She wondered. From what she knew of the woman’s reputation, it was the kind
of thing Kachiko might do. But no one who rose to the rank of Imperial Advisor could be wholly
stupid, and while positioning spies in the palace was one thing, this wholesale replacement was
clumsy. Kachiko wouldn’t have done it without better reason than mere ambition.
During her training, several of Chiari’s sensei had chided her for making speculative leaps
not supported by the evidence. She’d worked hard to suppress the impulse so that it wouldn’t bias
her thinking, but she couldn’t obliterate it entirely.
There in the House of Morning’s Fragrance, she found herself thinking, Maybe the servants
knew something they shouldn’t.

Kitsuki Yaruma stood with his hands linked behind his back, gazing out the window of his office,
as Chiari reported on her usual duties. When she finished, he said, “Thank you. I’ll write to Asako-
san myself. Please request an appointment with—”
He turned as he spoke and caught sight of her expression. “Is there a problem?”
“A private matter, I’m afraid,” Chiari said, feigning reluctance and deep embarrassment. She
curled the fingers of her left hand inward: the signal to take steps against eavesdroppers. The Dragon
Guesthouse ought to be secure—especially with one of her own school in charge—but given what
she’d learned since speaking with Azumamaro, it was better to be cautious. She was fairly confident
she’d avoided Scorpion watchers while making her inquiries around the city, but “fairly confident”
was not the same thing as “certain.”
Yaruma sighed as if irritated and closed the shutters. In the sudden dimness, he opened a
hidden drawer in his desk and took out a strip of calligraphed paper: an ofuda from a special temple
in Shiro Kitsuki. He affixed it to the join of the shutters, warding them against eavesdroppers.
“What is it?” he asked, in the weary tone of a man prepared to receive bad news.

635
 “I have learned some things of an alarming nature,” Chiari said, “but to confirm what I
suspect, I will have to do something dishonorable, which will bring great trouble on the clan if I am
caught. If you wish me to, I will tell you what I know—but in the event of difficulty, it may serve
the clan better for you not to know, so that you will not lie when you say you are ignorant. I will
follow your will, my lord.”
Yaruma was too experienced to ask any pointless questions. He only stood, lips pressed
together in thought, for several long moments. Then he said, “Are you certain the issue is grave
enough to merit the risk?”
“Yes.”
He nodded as if he expected nothing more. “Then write out your suspicions, in cipher, seal
it, and leave it with one of our agents in the city.” With a swift jerk, he pulled down the ofuda. “I
am disappointed in you, Kitsuki-san. Your previous superiors spoke more highly of you than this.
But if this is the standard of service I am to expect, then I have no use for you here. As of this
moment, you are dismissed from service here in Otosan Uchi. You leave for our lands tomorrow.”
“Yes, Kitsuki-sama,” Chiari said, kneeling and touching her head to the floor as if she were
in disgrace.
It wasn’t a perfect solution. The Scorpion would suspect intrigue regardless. But Yaruma
would be able to say, with perfect honesty, that by remaining in the capital she had disobeyed his
orders, and that would help mitigate any suspicion from the other clans. He would have someone
else read her coded report, and tell him its contents once it was safe.
But all of that, Chiari hoped, was a mere precaution. She had no intention of being caught.

The problem with bringing in so many new servants at once was that it became trivially easy to slip
one more into their ranks.
Dressed as a lowly heimin maid, Chiari made her way through the palace. She was no trained
Scorpion infiltrator, but she didn’t have to be; carrying a wrapped burden and looking harried was
enough to protect her. The one time she got stopped, it was by another servant, a man desperate to
know where Ikoma Mitsuyo’s chambers were. Fortunately Chiari knew, and sent him quickly on
his way.
She had no illusions as to what would happen if she were caught, though. A few of the
servants had been dismissed and were now working at new jobs elsewhere in the city... but many

636
had simply vanished. And although Chiari based her next deduction on her knowledge of Bayushi
Kachiko rather than direct evidence, she had every reason to think the missing ones were dead.
Every one of them had been working in the vicinity of the Emperor’s study that night.
Kitsuki training sometimes included a few skills not ordinarily used by honorable samurai.
Chiari quickly worked open the gilt brass lock, then closed it again so that, from a distance, the room
would look still sealed. Then she slipped inside.
The dimly lit room felt sterile. Incense still hung in the air from the purification, but no one
had used the study since the Emperor’s death. Chiari walked a circuit, observing everything, not
touching anything yet. The tatami was all new—part of the purification, no doubt. But was that the
only reason?
Nothing seemed out of place. She worked from the edges inward, on the grounds that anyone
interfering was more likely to have missed something at the fringes, but the furniture was all
undisturbed, and the elegant panels of the walls were clean of even dust. She spent a great deal of
time at the late Emperor’s desk, silently begging forgiveness from his spirit; unfortunately, all his
papers had been cleared away, leaving her no hints as to what he’d been working on before his
death.
In truth, she couldn’t even be certain of the desk itself, or any of the room’s other furnishings.
They, like the tatami, might be new. Those most likely to notice a replacement were either missing,
like Toturi, or benefiting far too much from the Emperor’s passing to raise a fuss.
Only two things were exempt from that possibility. They stood in side-by-side stands: the
elegance of Kunshu, and the blunt simplicity of Shori. The ancestral sword of the Hantei, and that
of the Lion.
She’d already examined them during her first pass, but respect had kept her at a slight
distance. Now Chiari bent close enough to smell the choji oil that protected the blades from rust,
scrutinizing them both in the scant light filtering through the shutters. The hilt of Kunshu and the
carved feathers of its sheath were as clean as everything else in the room. But on the hilt of Shori—
She couldn’t be sure. Holding her breath and offering another apology, this time to a
thousand years of outraged Lion ancestors, she lifted the blade from its stand and carried it to a
brighter spot by the round window.
On its hilt there was a single, minuscule speck of dried blood.

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 Chiari’s pulse jumped. Heedless of the traditions surrounding the blade, but careful to avoid
erasing any evidence, she drew it from its sheath, angling it this way and that until she was absolutely
sure. Apart from that single speck, Shori was clean.
Voices outside made her crouch lower beneath the window. When they passed, she hurried
to replace the blade on its rack, all too aware that she had already pressed her luck further than most
would dare. But she couldn’t leave without completing her investigation—and so she knelt before
Kunshu and bowed her head to the floor. Silently she prayed, May any punishment for this
blasphemy fall on me and me alone, for what I do, I do in the service of not just my clan, but the
Empire.
Then she rose and drew Kunshu.
An instant later she slammed it back into its sheath and dropped it to the floor. The clatter
was appallingly loud, but Chiari could barely hear it over the shrieking horror in her mind. No no
no blessed Fortunes have mercy...
It was irrational. It had no basis in evidence. It was more than a mere speculative leap; it was
wild supposition, a visceral reaction she could not justify in the least. But over and over again in her
mind, one horrific realization echoed:
It’s cursed. The ancestral sword of the Hantei is cursed.
Chiari wasn’t a shugenja, and she knew no more of theology than she had to. But she felt it
in her bones: this sacred relic had been stained beyond recall. As if someone had used it to commit
an unforgivable, blasphemous crime.
Like killing the Emperor.
The possibility was almost too huge to contemplate. That the Emperor had not died of ill
health, but had been assassinated—
A spot of blood on Shori’s hilt. A room more clean than mere purification would require.
Servants dismissed. Servants missing—the ones who had been closest when he died. Taken all
together, it barely counted as proof of anything, much less murder.
But the screaming certainty within her would not be quiet. She would not be able to sleep
nor eat, much less concentrate on her other duties, unless she told someone. Yet Chiari could barely
imagine herself facing Yaruma and telling him, I think that Kunshu is cursed. He’d undergone the
same training she had. He would want evidence.
She would find it.

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“Father,” Doji Kuwanan said, “I have failed.”
But if the ghost of Doji Satsume heard, he made no answer. Or if he did, Kuwanan couldn’t
hear it over the turmoil wracking his own spirit.
He sighed, opened his eyes, and looked around the tent Daidoji Uji had offered him as a
place to rest while he recovered. The Asahina healers had said the last of the pain from the wound
inflicted by Mirumoto Hitomi should be gone before the setting of Lady Sun. By then, the elemental
kami would have finished knitting together his injured flesh.
That injury wasn’t the problem, though. The one that was could not be soothed, or bandaged,
or treated by the healers. That wound had been to his honor, his pride, and his sense of self-worth.
He’d borne it since his disastrously failed attempt to rescue the crown prince, Hantei Sotorii, from
an enforced exile by the treacherous Scorpion pretenders now holding the Chrysanthemum Throne.
A contingent of Seppun guards, along with a cadre of Dragon Clan samurai led by Hitomi, had been
escorting the prince to the Monastery among the Winds. It was a conveniently obscure place where
Sotorii could be kept, until he inevitably died of some mysterious accident or illness. Kuwanan had
been determined to rescue Sotorii and restore him to his rightful place on the Imperial Throne.
He had almost succeeded.
Satsume did speak, but in Kuwanan’s memories. Almost succeeded, his father had once said,
is just another way of describing failure. He had been talking to his sister, Hotaru, but Kuwanan had
taken the words to heart.
He sighed again, and let his mind follow Satsume’s path of bitter truth to its bleak
destination, one he had visited many times now. His failure had made ripples, like a stone dropped

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in water, that could wash over his family, his clan, even the Empire itself. Satsume would have gone
on to say something like ...and failure is a stain, one you are obligated to cleanse—
The tent rustled and Daidoji Uji entered. He bowed to Kuwanan, but stiffly, as the Daidoji
daimyō was clad in full armor. Only his mempō, a distinctive mask of blank steel that covered his
lower face, had not been fastened in place.
“Doji-sama,” Uji said, “as we make our final preparations for our assault on Kyūden Kakita,
I must ask—do you intend to participate?”
In other words, Uji wanted to know, are you going to make yourself useful, or just keep
loitering about my army? It was a fair question. Kuwanan was the brother of the Crane Clan
Champion, not someone Uji could just expect to press into service.
“My intent...” Kuwanan began, but he stopped, his voice trailing off. He didn’t actually know
the answer. As a warrior, he most certainly should contribute to his clan’s effort to retake Kakita
Palace from the Lion Clan. But he could not forget those ripples of failure that could wash over his
family, his clan, even the Empire itself. If he joined the line of battle, did he risk causing the first of
those ripples to wash over Uji and this army?
But his tortured musings had gone even further. He’d begun to wonder if the Heavens
themselves objected to his intent to contest his sister’s leadership of the Crane, and if his failure was
their way of demonstrating that. Could he only avoid tragedy by renouncing his intent to take the
clan’s leadership from Hotaru? Would even that be enough, though? Would the only way to truly
still those rippling waters be to perform the three cuts?
Even as these desolate thoughts trudged through Kuwanan’s mind, he remembered Hotaru’s
letter, found among his father’s possessions in Otosan Uchi. In it, Hotaru had written of her hatred
for their father, and of her twisted love for Bayushi Kachiko. Her words seemed burned into his
mind, like calligraphy rendered in fire, even now making his hands clench into fists. How could he
not seek to supplant her, given how badly she’d compromised herself and her clan?
As he had been doing for days now, Kuwanan teetered on a katana’s edge between
surrendering to his failure and pressing on regardless of it. What made the blade’s edge even keener
was that he could see his father judging either choice as the correct one, or the wrong one. Perhaps
that explained Satsume’s silence: his spirit was waiting for his son to make a decision that no one
else could.

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 Kuwanan simply did not know which way to step from the razor-sharp dilemma, and end
the pain of his uncertainty.
Uji shifted, his armor creaking in a silence quickly becoming awkward. “I will leave you to
consider the matter, Doji-sama, as I must oversee the final preparations—”
“No,” Kuwanan said, raising a hand. That creak of armor. It was a sound he knew well. A
martial sound, heralding coming strife and bloodshed, struggle and death. A sound that said, I am
about to place my life in the hands of the Fortunes, of the Heavens, to preserve or spend as they see
fit.
The Heavens. He had wondered about their judgment. Perhaps that was the answer. Allow
the Heavens, the ultimate arbiters of what was right, to decide.
“Tell me, Uji-san,” Kuwanan went on, now letting instinct guide his words, “what will be
the most difficult and dangerous part of this coming assault?”
Uji’s eyes narrowed, but he simply said, “The Lion have constructed a wooden stockade that
stands apart from the keep. Its archers menace any approach to the palace gates, while archers in the
palace threaten, in turn, any attack on the strongpoint. It is a cunning defensive work.”
“It is essential, then, that this strongpoint be taken.”
“Essential?” Uji frowned. “No. It would be beneficial, though, to at least neutralize it, to
facilitate an assault upon the palace gates. I had considered a spoiling attack upon it, in conjunction
with the main assault. On reflection, however, I believe it is a better option to focus our efforts
elsewhere—”
“The weakest part of a palace is its gates, so your main assault should be there,” Kuwanan
said. “Plan your spoiling attack on this strongpoint, Daidoji-san. I will lead it.”
“With all due respect, Doji-sama, such an attack is fraught with extreme risk. Casualties are
likely to be severe.”
“I understand that.”
Uji’s frown deepened. “I am mindful of your training among the Lion, near the time of your
coming of age. When their samurai perceive themselves to have failed, they will sometimes seek
bloody redemption as Deathseekers.” He said nothing else, but his concern over Kuwanan’s motives
was clear.
But Kuwanan shook his head, and even managed a thin smile. “Rest assured, Uji-san, I do
not seek spectacular death in battle. I would not risk Crane lives in such a self-centered way.” The

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smile faded. “But... yes, I am giving the Heavens an opportunity to render their judgment upon me.
I will fight to win. But if I do not survive, then their decision regarding the championship of our
clan will be clear, will it not?”
He could see the Daidoji weighing the sincerity of his words, and simply waited. Finally,
Uji nodded. “Very well. Then allow me to ask you this, Doji-sama. In his treatise Leadership,
Akodo-no-Kami wrote, “In battle, all things are honorable.” Do you accept that as true?”
Kuwanan frowned at the unexpected question. “I admit to... misgivings... about that
particular passage, but I am reluctant to question the wisdom of a Kami. Why?”
“Because,” Uji said, “while we cannot reduce the risks associated with attacking the Lion
strongpoint, we have certain... assets... that will increase our chances of success.”

Night, Near the Gates of Kakita Palace

Kuwanan peered through the wet scrub and grass, into the pre-dawn gloom beyond. He could just
make out the Lion strongpoint protecting the gates of Kakita Palace—a rough palisade of cedar logs
cut from a nearby copse. It should have been brightly lit by torches. However, the rain, which had
begun shortly after his small force of Crane warriors had started their circuitous approach, had
forced the defenders to use only hooded lanterns. These wan lights now flickered erratically, moving
back and forth, as the Lion defenders paced along the top of the wooden walls.
He turned to the woman beside him and whispered, “Are you ready, Daidoji-san?”
In answer, she made a hand signal, which brought a dozen more Harriers forward, their
blackened tekagi shuko—tiger claws, wicked metal climbing implements—already affixed to their
hands and feet. A few whispered words, then she quickly donned tiger claws of her own, turned
back to Kuwanan, and nodded.
“We are ready, Doji-sama.”
Harriers. Kuwanan had heard of them, of course, assuming them to be nothing more than
elite scouts. And they were that, but—as Uji had revealed to him—they were also much more. The
Harriers employed stealth, deception, and specialized tactics to harass, disrupt, and confuse the
enemies of the Crane, achieving effects far out of proportion to their numbers. They also
uncomfortably reminded Kuwanan of shinobi: covert spies, saboteurs, and assassins.
Unsurprisingly, the Scorpion, honorless dogs that they were, particularly favored the use of shinobi.

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Uji had assured Kuwanan, though, that the Harriers were strictly employed only in battle and, as
Akodo-no-Kami had written, “In battle, all things are honorable.”
Besides, the Harriers were not a new invention, so presumably, as Crane Clan Champion,
Satsume had known all about them. If he had approved of their tactics, who was Kuwanan to say
otherwise?
Kuwanan nodded, and the Harriers, crouching low, slipped over the crestline and began their
stealthy approach to the strongpoint. A squad of Daidoji archers followed them, to give cover as
they sought to climb and breach the palisade. Their cloaks, dappled in dark blues and greys, caused
all of them to be immediately swallowed by the predawn gloom in a way Kuwanan found utterly
uncanny.
He turned back to the rest of his small force, thirty Daidoji Iron Warriors, and gestured to
the sergeant leading them. The gunsō nodded back, and they all started forward, breaking the
crestline and rushing toward the strongpoint’s gate of rough wood. If all went according to plan,
they should arrive at the gate just as the Harriers opened it. If not, Kuwanan and the Daidoji would
be caught beneath the palisade, in the open, with no choice but to try to storm the gate or withdraw.
A shout. Another. Kuwanan saw the dark shapes of the Harriers scampering up the palisade,
climbing as quickly as monkeys. As they clambered over the top of the wall and vanished inside the
strongpoint, more shouts rose.
Kuwanan swept his katana, Omeka, from its sheath and began to jog. His feet, and those of
the Daidoji behind him, splashed through the rain-sodden grass and mud. Bowstrings snapped from
ahead as Lion archers opened fire. Daidoji arrows whistled and hummed in response. Cries, as the
missiles found targets on both sides. He reached the gate and crouched, gripping Omeka. Battle
raged immediately on the other side of the rough cedar wall, literally within arm’s reach, but it might
as well have been happening on the Islands of Spice and Silk—
A thump, a loud scrape from rope hinges, and the gate opened a handspan.
Kuwanan slammed his shoulder against it. Iron Warriors joined him, widening the gap.
Kuwanan shoved through, pushing someone aside—the commander of the Harriers; a deep cut
across her face had taken an eye—and kept going. He cut down a Lion bushi who pushed desperately
at the gate, trying to close it again. Then, Iron Warriors at his heels, Kuwanan flung himself into the
melee.

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 Darkness. Rain. Fleeting glimpses of warriors, Lion and Crane. Figures striking, dodging,
bleeding, falling. Kuwanan blocked a strike from an Akodo bushi, pushed inside it, kicked out the
woman’s knee, and opened her throat with Omeka.
Then, a dazzling flash, followed by a terrific blast of thunder. Rain crashed down in a torrent.
Kuwanan stopped, skidding in the mud, the battle swirling around him. Lightning. Thunder.
Osano-wo, the mighty Fortune of Fire and Thunder, had come.
A sublime realization embraced Kuwanan. The Heavens had announced their presence. They
had come to judge him.
He was unafraid. Indeed, a deep sense of peaceful inevitability enveloped him. In the next
few moments, he would prevail, or he would die.
Kuwanan flung himself back into the battle, laying about him with his sword, kicking,
punching, driving his way into the defenders. He stopped a strike from a Matsu with the flat of
Omeka, then spun the sword in a quick spiral, disarming his opponent. The man tried to punch him,
but Kuwanan slammed his sword’s pommel into the Lion’s face, then cut his neck spine-deep on
the follow-through.
A spear jabbed at him, its point ploughing a furrow through his shoulder armor. Kuwanan
used the momentum of his previous strike to spin a full circle, knocking the spear aside with his off
hand, then cutting its wielder’s leg out just above the knee. The man fell and Kuwanan stepped on
his throat, crushing it, while seeking a new opponent.
The battle now became a series of stark vignettes, searing instants frozen by flashes of
lightning—warriors striking, falling, bleeding, and dying. The fighting raged on—
—until it stopped.
Sucking in lungfuls of air that tasted of storm and mud and blood, Kuwanan, a dozen Iron
Warriors flanking him, found himself facing four Lion bushi. They stood gasping, spattered with
mud, swords raised, backs to the palisade. For a moment, the two sides simply glared across their
blades through the hissing rain. Then lightning flashed again, and in its stark glare, Kuwanan
realized he knew the Lion leader, a Matsu named Kaitokura. They had trained together during
Kuwanan’s time with the Lion, sparring under the harsh gaze of an Akodo sensei.
Kuwanan understood. The Crane had won, and he was still alive. But the Heavens were not
done judging him. The aftermath of victory could be as important as the victory itself—perhaps
more so.

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 He raised his hand, calling out, “Parley, Kaitokura-san!”
The Matsu glared for a moment, then recognition dawned, and he lowered his sword a
fraction. “Kuwanan-sama... it seems we are destined to spar once again, but this time with steel.”
Kuwanan shook his head, though. “No. That is unnecessary. We have won this day, yes, but
you fought honorably and well. There is no need for further death.”
Kaitokura’s eyes narrowed. “You ask me to surrender, when I can yet wield a blade?”
“Yes,” Kuwanan said, lowering Omeka, “I do. A time of great trial is upon the Empire. A
vile usurper seeks the throne. Rokugan needs all of its loyal servants—now, more than ever.”
“But I cannot relinquish this place to you while I yet live. I cannot put aside my duty.”
Kuwanan sheathed Omeka and walked forward, placing himself within a katana’s reach of
Kaitokura. He heard murmurs from the Daidoji, but raised his hand.
“I will not see you or your noble followers die,” he said, “simply to make a point. Therefore,
I do not ask for your surrender. You are free to go, to join your comrades within Kyūden Kakita if
it remains in Lion hands, or to return home if not, as you see fit.” He locked his gaze onto the
Matsu’s through the rain. “Please, Kaitokura-san... your Empire needs you.”
Kaitokura stared back for a moment, then turned to the remaining Lion. A brief conversation,
then he turned back and sheathed his own katana.
“We acknowledge your victory, Kuwanan-sama.” He gestured at the other Lion. “They will
withdraw, leaving this place to you. There is one condition, however.”
Kuwanan waited.
“In the end, we have failed. Our honor must be cleansed. That burden falls upon me, as I led
our forces to this failure. For that reason, my own service to the Empire has come to an end. My
condition is therefore this, Kuwanan-sama... that you be my second, and return my daishō and death
poem to my family.”
Kuwanan wanted to object, but he thought about his sister, Hotaru, refusing to accept the
seppuku of the Daidoji general who had lost the Battle of Three Trees Village. He had railed against
her decision; how could he make the same one now, then?
So he nodded and said, “I would be honored to do so, Kaitokura-san.”
Lightning flashed, thunder roared, then the storm moved on to the west and the rain began
to slacken.

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The rain had washed the late summer dust from the grass, leaving it brightly green under Lady Sun’s
morning light. Only in one place was it marred, its verdant purity darkened by a spill of blood, tacky
and brown.
Kuwanan sat cross-legged beside it. Omeka, now cleaned of blood, rested across his knees.
After a while, he looked up from the stained grass and past the palisade, now garrisoned by Crane
bushi, at the looming sprawl of Kyūden Kakita beyond. While Kuwanan’s small force had attacked
the strongpoint, the bulk of Uji’s army had stormed the gates. The Lion had defended stubbornly
and well, though, and retained the palace. Still, Uji believed that, with the strongpoint now theirs, it
would only be a matter of time before the Crane finally retook the palace.
But Matsu Kaitokura would not see it. His body had been taken away, returned under truce
to the Lion. Now, besides the blood, all that remained were the twin blades of Kaitokura’s daishō,
and his death poem in Kuwanan’s hand.

A night storm rages

I would weather its fury
But the wind blinds me
Though not to the bitter truth
I am now lost in the rain

Footsteps rustled the grass behind him. Kuwanan turned.

“We shall need a day,” Daidoji Uji said, “to prepare for the next assault, Doji-sama. Have
you given thought to the role you will play in it?”
Kuwanan folded the paper and slipped it carefully into his obi. “I will not be participating in
it, Uji-san, nor do you truly need me to. I must return Matsu Kaitokura’s daishō and death poem to
his family. And then, I must travel to the Osari Plains.”
“To confront your sister.”
Kuwanan nodded. “I told Kaitokura that the Empire needed all of its loyal servants to stand
against the craven pretenders who seek to seize power. Our own clan must likewise be united in that
purpose. While its champion remains poisoned by the venom of a Scorpion, though, that cannot
happen.”

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 Uji simply looked at Kuwanan for a moment, then nodded. “Whatever it was you sought in
last night’s battle, Doji-sama, you seem to have found it.”
Kuwanan looked back at the bloodstained grass. “I did. The Heavens seem to believe I
should continue along this path I have chosen. My failure to rescue Prince Sotorii may have been
their way of ensuring my dedication to this journey, as difficult and painful as it will be.” He looked
back at Uji. “And I am so dedicated, now, more than ever. And what of you, Uji-san? What do you
intend?”
“I will retake Kakita Castle, and re-establish its garrison. I will then take the balance of this
army to the Osari Plains.”
Kuwanan searched the Daidoji’s face for some hint of what he meant by that, but found only
an inscrutable blandness. “When you arrive there, Uji-san,” he said, “you will likely face a choice.
A very difficult one.”
“I am well aware of that, Doji-sama. In the meantime, you will need an escort, on this grim
road you walk. I shall provide a contingent of Daidoji to you, to be that escort and to bear your
banner to the Osari Plains.”
Kuwanan could still discern nothing certain from the Daidoji’s face, but he nodded
nonetheless. “I am... grateful, Uji-san.”
The Daidoji daimyō bowed in turn and departed, leaving Kuwanan sitting in the grass,
contemplating the blood that had washed away the stain of Matsu Kaitokura’s failure.
He looked up, at the palisade.
Have I washed away my own failure as thoroughly?
After a while, Kuwanan decided that he had.
More importantly, he believed Satsume would have thought so, too.

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The letter felt heavier than simple rice paper should have... The weight of a harsh order.
Ikoma Tsanuri dropped the missive onto her map table, where it knocked over a banner tile.
“You see?” Ikoma Ayano said at her elbow. The emissary was bundled in a thick, fur-lined
traveling cloak and smelled of perfume. An odd visitor to a military camp. “My lord Anakazu-ue’s
command is clear. Take the Unicorn village for supplies.”
Or starve.
Tsanuri rubbed a brooding hand across her lips and chin, as if to erase the disloyalty that
threatened to spring from her mouth.
Have we already come to this?
She stood, righting the fallen banner in a smooth motion, and met Ayano’s mistrustful eyes.
“Lord Anakazu’s message has been received with respect and honor, Ayano-san. I thank you for
your long journey and extend the hospitality of our camp before your return to Otosan Uchi.”
Ayano’s mouth twitched before she tucked her hands into the sleeves of her traveling
kimono. “I will leave after I see Ikoma-ue’s command fulfilled.”
“You doubt the loyalty of my army?” Tsanuri asked.
A smug smile lit up Ayano’s face. “No, but Lord Ujiaki told me that you might stall.” The
emissary snickered, betraying the machinations behind the letter.
“Lord Ujiaki?” Tsanuri frowned.
That presumptuous ambassador dares stick his fingers into affairs of the military?

648
 Ayano lifted her chin with an air of authority. “Both Lord Anakazu and Lord Ujiaki devised
this strategy after analyzing information from all the supply lines. Your duty lies in obedience, not
in questioning, Tsanuri-san.”
“Ikoma-ue’s orders shall be fulfilled, Ayano-san,” Tsanuri reasserted, careful not to betray
her rising frustration. Such interference of bureaucracy was new to her, but she meant to keep her
wits and her honor intact, especially during this time of internal upheaval within the Lion Clan
leadership. “I must confer with my advisors before any action is taken. ‘Thought proceeds action,
strategy before the strike.’”
Tsanuri’s quote from Akodo’s Leadership rang dull in the air; her delay might be interpreted
as hesitation...
Like Toturi-ue might have done.
Ayano sniffed.
Tsanuri marched from the war tent, the crisp autumn air stinging her cheeks. A guard fell in
line behind her as she exited. Anakazu’s representative followed them, and Tsanuri could feel
Ayano’s leering gaze absorbing her every move, to be reported back to the Ikoma daimyō.
From atop the hill, Tsanuri could see down into the valley where Onon Village lay. Most of
the huts and storehouses had plum-dyed banners hanging from the eaves, signaling their vassalage
to the Unicorn. The hamlet’s rice paddies had been drained weeks ago, the last of the autumn harvest
already suspended from bamboo drying poles. The peasant families bundled in blanket coats crept
between large stone troughs, filling them with the full rice sheaves, threshing the stalks with wooden
staves, and winnowing the rice grains from their hulls. Nearby stood a rice-straw wickerwork ki-
rin, a ward against harm.
A few farmers directed wary glances up the hill toward the Lion camp. One small child
pointed a tiny harvesting sickle at Tsanuri. She could not make out his face, but the boy’s mother
slapped his hand down and pointed to the rice stalks, ducking her head and smashing her staff back
into the rhythm of threshing, pretending the Lion weren’t there.
The heaviness of Lord Anakazu’s letter eddied in Tsanuri’s gut, and her military training
forced her to analyze the situation to settle the uneasiness. The Lion and Unicorn were not officially
at war, but Altansarnai’s aggression was being utterly ignored by the new Scorpion regent. Perhaps
the rumors of dissension in the capital were accurate, and the regent simply could not enact a censure

649
of the escalating violence along the Lion-Unicorn border. But if such violence advantaged the
Scorpion...
Tsanuri rubbed at her bottom lip again.
It is my duty to follow orders, even if it leads to war. Only through perfect obedience will the
Lion armies remain united and strong enough to face such challenges.
The village below was legally off limits to any direct assault, and this immunity meant that
there was no Unicorn army nearby to defend the farming lands. But with Lion villages under attack
by the Unicorn, it seemed that such laws had apparently lost their weight. There would only be a
meager peasant militia to defend Onon.
Chickens against hungry Lions. Can I really order such a thing?
Tsanuri turned her back and strode toward the supply tents, her emissary shadow in pursuit.
Akodo Toshiro, her quartermaster, appeared from between paltry stacks of straw barrels, a writing
brush and parchment in his strong hands.
“Tsanuri-sama,” he greeted her, smiling with hollow cheeks. His nearly bare ledger retold
the story of the dwindling rice casks. He bowed to Tsanuri and then separately to the emissary.
“Ayano-san, I hear you finally bring word from the Ikoma daimyō.”
“Yes,” Ayano replied, graciously returning his bow. “Lord Anakazu has cleverly resolved
your supply shortage.”
“The blessing of the Fortunes on Anakazu-ue,” Toshiro said. “We were about to eat our
horses.”
His crude joke dropped Ayano’s bottom lip, so Tsanuri stepped forward. “How much do we
have left, Toshiro-san?”
Toshiro caught the weight in her voice, his smile vanishing. His gaze lingered on her for a
moment before he scanned the ledger and did a minor mental calculation while tapping his brush
against the side of his writing board. When he returned his gaze to Tsanuri, his jaw was tight.
“We have enough to last us two more days, Tsanuri-sama, but we can make it stretch to four
if we cut down portions again. However, I worry that our soldiers’ strength dwindles. They have
endured weeks of strict rationing, and the autumn cold is already here. We cannot last much longer
without resupply.”
The sharpness of his cheekbones signaled that Toshiro had personally adopted the brunt of
their last ration cuts, reserving what he could for the rest of the company and, most importantly, for

650
Tsanuri as general. He had a slight shiver in his bones and was almost too weak to keep himself
warm. Tsanuri turned to her guard, a Matsu woman with a curved yari and a grim jaw. The thinness
of her face and her needling eyes signaled a ferocity sharpened by her own hunger.
“Beiona-san, what do you think of Toshiro-san’s report? Will you and the other soldiers last
four more days?”
Beiona’s tight lips deepened into a resolved frown. She stabbed a sidelong glance at Ayano,
her grip tightening on her spear.
“We shall do anything you command, Tsanuri-sama,” Beiona growled. “Even if it means
waiting a week more for the supplies to arrive.”
Tsanuri winced.
Beiona knows about the village. She, and her comrades, would sacrifice much to avoid such
a one-sided raid against peasants. There is no honor in attacking farmers.
“No need to wait a week,” Ayano grumbled, impatience spurring her to an unseemly
outburst. She pointed down the hill. “The rice is there!”
“Are you serious?” Toshiro gasped. Beiona glared at Ayano, but the emissary did not notice.
“Lord Anakazu commands—”
“—has asked that we supplement our supplies with those from Onon Village,” Tsanuri said,
lifting a hand to silence Ayano and keep the peace. The emissary cringed but ceased speaking. “At
least until the supply lines can be re-established to our location. Right now, provisions are stretched
too thin among all the other contingents along the borders, not just here near the Unicorn lands but
also near those of the Crane.”
“That is absurd,” Toshiro mumbled, tapping his brush again in nervous calculation. “Our
own harvests should have been gathered already. That should be more than enough.”
The heaviness inside Tsanuri’s gut lurched. Toshiro was right. Somewhere, something was
amiss.
Tsanuri’s eyes darted back down to the quiet village. The peasants were carting away
countless bushels of rice. Beside her, Beiona’s agitated gaze, boney wrists, and thin lips were
mirrored across all the Lion in her army. An army with no war to wage, they had been passively
patrolling the border, monitoring travelers and intimidating any Unicorn contingents that wandered
too close. The monotony of their eventless march had gone on for months with scant resupply.
Impatient soldiers with empty bellies had made her army wild. Tsanuri had heard rumors of her

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ashigaru catching autumn field finches and even crickets to fill their time and empty bellies. Asking
them to continue to slowly starve for weeks was dishonorable. Her own reluctance to carry out Lord
Anakazu’s order would not come before her duty to her soldiers. The Lion’s power was its armies,
and she would not betray her clan to doubtful conjecture.
“It is our duty to obey, not to question, Toshiro-san,” Tsanuri snapped at him but also at
herself, echoing Ayano’s words. “We must uphold the honor of the Lion, and right now, that means
feeding our clan’s armies. Our stores must be supplemented until supplies can arrive from harvests
in our own lands.”
“But stealing—”
“—Akodo Toshiro-san,” Beiona growled, attempting to awaken his sense of duty. On
instinct, Toshiro had already half-drawn his katana at her cry, his brush and ledger cast
absentmindedly to the ground, before stopping himself. Crimson shame mottled his cheeks before
he resheathed his sword and bowed in apology to Tsanuri and Beiona. He ignored Ayano.
“Forgive me, Tsanuri-sama. Beiona-san. The hunger... it makes me... foolish.”
“Ikoma-ue is wise in his strategy to alleviate the suffering of your troops,” Ayano said to
Tsanuri, her proud eyes watching Toshiro bend to retrieve his writing implements. “Who knows
what would have happened if I had come only a few days later.”
“We shall only take what we need,” Tsanuri told Beiona and Toshiro, ignoring the fact that
she had no assurances from Ayano about how much longer they would need to wait before fresh
provisions arrived. “Toshiro-san, calculate how much we will require for a month. Beiona-san, ready
the troops to take the village and send a messenger to the peasants. We move in an hour. That should
give the villagers enough time for their militia to organize, should they dare stand against us.”
“And if they do?” Beiona asked, holding her yari with both hands now.
Tsanuri once again rubbed her lips and stared down the hill. The peasant boy followed his
mother back toward the village, a large sack of rice on her back. He cast a final glance up toward
Tsanuri. She turned away.
“Then they stand against the Lion.”

The raid lasted barely more than an hour. Hunger had spurred Tsanuri’s soldiers to merciless
efficiency. Many of her troops had crashed into the storehouses first, dragging out sacks of rice and
millet, casks of wine and preserved vegetables, strings of dried fish, and baskets of fruit. A dozen

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gaunt samurai had wrestled large cooking pots out of some huts, and the nearest soldiers pummeled
each other to scoop handfuls of the porridge into their ravenous mouths. A few of the ashigaru had
even begun butchering livestock before Toshiro put an end to it. In between mouthfuls, the frenzied
soldiers had slashed down any who opposed them, and the peasant militia crumpled within
moments, falling like their own rice sheaves before the kama.
But too many had attempted to guard their harvest. Beiona oversaw the peasants gathering
the bodies into a pile, her armor spattered with blood. Her ferocity still had not settled, and she paced
back and forth before the mound of fallen heimin.
“Cowards!” she growled, swinging her spear wildly with wrathful strikes in the air. The
peasants gathered in the square fled before her as the Matsu rampaged. She kicked the mound
repeatedly and screamed into the sky. “Why didn’t you put up more of a fight, you mice! You
vermin! You cowards!”
“Beiona!” Tsanuri shouted. “Clean yourself up and go ensure the soldiers are only taking
what supplies we need from the storehouses.”
The Matsu growled again, kicking a final time before stalking away, her dissatisfied fury
seething from her in waves.
“Two hundred fifty-six,” Toshiro whispered.
“Bodies?” Tsanuri asked, whirling toward him, bewildered.
The Akodo shook his head, his brush gliding across a slowly populating ledger. “I was
counting the koku of rice that the peasants harvested today,” Toshiro replied, his voice tight, as if
sealed in a jar. He finished adding up that day’s harvest and followed Beiona to count what was left
in the storehouses, his shoulders slumped.
A few Lion ashigaru slinked after Toshiro, uneasy under the bleak gazes of the bereft
Unicorn farmers. One even wiped the porridge from around his mouth with a guilty hand before
joining his comrades. They had stolen from their own kind, peasants raiding and killing other
peasants, and they attempted to hide their shame by ducking behind the Lion samurai and focusing
their eyes on their work.
With a strong sweep of her arm, Tsanuri directed the Unicorn farmers to finish collecting
the dead.
She had seen death countless times. The deaths in Onon did little to shake her. But Beiona’s
anger... Toshiro’s discouragement... The shameful faces of her troops. This was worse than hunger.

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 A victory with no glory.
Ayano lingered near the edge of the square, her sleeve over her mouth as she stared at the
bodies with bulging eyes.
“Why so many?” she mumbled as Tsanuri approached. “Why did they not simply
surrender?”
“They have their own duty to the Unicorn. They guard their crops with their lives just as
samurai defend the honor of their lords and clans. Just as you do the bidding of Anakazu-ue.”
The emissary choked, the realization of her hand in the slaughter breaking upon her mind.
She almost gagged.
“Return to camp, Ayano-san,” Tsanuri directed. “Rest tonight. You can report back to
Otosan Uchi in the morning.”
The Ikoma messenger nodded and walked back up the hill with leaden feet. Tsanuri returned
to the center of the square to oversee the rest of the accounting, of bodies and provisions alike.

Night fell on the Lion camp. The indignity of the raid faded into the dark, and bellies long empty
had finally been filled. Tsanuri, opting to eat last after ensuring all her bushi had been fed, finally
sat in her war tent over a bowl of rice, stewed lotus root and potatoes, pickled radish and mustard
greens, and an early autumn apple. The meal had grown cold in the chill of the autumn darkness,
but she sank back into the comfort of the food, savoring each taste she had missed after weeks of
only millet gruel.
The curtained door parted, letting in a wind that rattled the fire in her lanterns and wood
brazier.
“Akodo Toshiro-san and Ikoma Ayano-san to see you,” the guard beyond called in.
“Admit them,” Tsanuri replied, setting her chopsticks down for the moment.
Toshiro entered, his ledger still in hand, and Ayano shuffled in after him, a resolved
haughtiness plastered back onto her face. She pulled her fur-lined cloak tighter around her shoulders.
“Forgive our intrusion during your meal, Tsanuri-sama,” Toshiro said. “I have the final
accounts for the day.”
“How much do we have?”
“The supplies from Onon total three thousand, seven hundred and sixty koku of rice, along
with about half that in vegetables and other staples. However, one of the villagers told me that Onon

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is a tax farm. Most of the harvest was grown to be sent for Unicorn Imperial taxes, with only a little
left over for the village’s farmers.”
Tsanuri’s brows furrowed. “Is this true? Does Lord Anakazu know about this?”
The emissary had already steeled herself against confrontation. “Lord Anakazu has
instructed that I oversee the resupply of your stores. He mentioned nothing to me about taxes.”
Tsanuri took up Lord Anakazu’s letter once more. The noncommittal politeness of
Anakazu’s wording implied an indefinite wait before resupply and made no mention of knowing
Onon’s function as a tax holding.
“We will leave the portion meant for taxes. We shall not take what is the Emperor’s,” Tsanuri
said. Doubt crept back into her stomach.
Where are the Lion land harvests?
“And Onon’s winter stores?” Toshiro contested.
“You undermine Ikoma-ue’s intentions if your army still starves regardless of the actions
you’ve taken this day,” Ayano said, her face hot with defensive anger, though an anxious twinge
rimmed her mouth. “You must keep the supplies.”
“How can you be so heartless?”
The noise of Toshiro and Ayano’s argument faded as Tsanuri looked down at her meal. It
seemed spoiled with the bitterness of this new revelation. Eating it meant Onon would starve.
The heaviness inside her yawned wide into an acerbic whirlpool of doubt, threatening to
engulf her.
Had Ikoma-ue knowingly ordered such a thing?
She could not doubt the honor of her lord. Ikoma Anakazu had always led their family with
wisdom and diligence. But had this order been a mistake? Perhaps the disorder in Lion leadership
was worse than she had previously thought. Her standing army had no real purpose. The Lion
harvests were missing. Today’s orders had been less strategic and more reckless. And how many
more companies like hers had been ordered to attack defenseless villages like Onon out of necessity?
What game was Lord Anakazu playing?
A snarl almost escaped Tsanuri’s lips.
No. Not Anakazu. Ujiaki.
She glanced down at Ikoma-ue’s letter again. The signature chop mark stood out from the
black ink like a crimson eye peering from the thick of a winter forest. Ikoma Anakazu. Her

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commander. Her daimyō. He was blameless in this. If there was more chaos beneath the surface,
then he was facing it on their behalf. She would support her commander. Regardless of the schemes
of Ujiaki, Bayushi Shoju, or even Matsu Tsuko... Tsanuri would serve as the general Lord Anakazu
could rely on perfectly, no matter the cost.
Tsanuri slammed her fist down onto the table. The ceramic dishes clinked precariously
against the wood, but Toshiro and Ayano silenced them immediately.
“Lord Anakazu must not know that the Unicorn reserved Onon as a tax holding,” Tsanuri
said, holding his letter up. “That is my fault for not discovering this ahead of time and relaying such
important information to my superiors. Their strategy follows the knowledge they had, so this is my
own failure, and the dishonor of it be on my head. To maintain the honor of our army, we will follow
Ikoma-ue’s orders, and in the future, I shall do better to include such important details in my letters
from the war front to our leaders. I shall follow Ayano-san’s example and be a better servant to our
lord.”
Toshiro winced and bowed his head. Ayano’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth, but she
paused. A strange awe had softened her face. She placed her hand on the Lion mon emblazoned on
her chest.
“You have done what Lord Anakazu has commanded, and I shall report on the honor of your
success,” she said. Then she bowed, deeper than she ever had since coming to their camp. “I shall
leave for Otosan Uchi at once.”
Without another word, she slipped out of the tent, disappearing as the autumn wind wailed
behind her.
Tsanuri sank back into her chair and set the letter down next to her dinner. Her sick stomach
had ruined her appetite, but she picked up the chopsticks anyway. People had died for this food.
People might still die for it.
Toshiro bit his lip. “Tsanuri-sama. You sacrifice so much for us.”
Tsanuri laughed, startling the sentimental Akodo, and he almost dropped his ledger.
“We all do,” she said, scooping up a mouthful of the rice. Each golden grain glimmered in
the firelight. “Every single one of us. That is what makes the Lion armies strong. Hundreds of lives.
Thousands of sacrifices. All of them honorable.”
Toshiro nodded, finally pocketing his ledger.

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 “Now, go eat something before your foolishness gets you in trouble, again,” Tsanuri said.
The Akodo quartermaster bowed and made to leave the tent.
“Oh. And Toshiro-san,” she called after him. “Don’t you dare write one of those silly Crane
poems you scribble in your tent at night about me.”
Toshiro smiled. “A sacrifice I shall make for you, Tsanuri-sama. Good night.”
Alone with her meal again, Tsanuri lifted her chopsticks to her lips. War was coming. From
the Unicorn. And the Crane. And the Scorpion. Soon, she would be asked to do much worse things
than eat. They all would.
I shall do what is asked of me by my commander. Always.
She put the rice in her mouth and savored every grain.

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Asako Maezawa had to admit, the man was an expert in his craft. Perhaps all that woodblock carving
actually was good practice for tattooing. The method seemed the same to his old layman’s eyes, and
he was even sure that the chisels and needles applied to his skin were interchangeable with those
the artist used on wood. He imagined this artist would have enjoyed some popularity here at the City
of Remembrance, perhaps among the frequently visiting Mantis sailors, or the city firefighters who
imprinted their entire bodies, or even passing Daidoji caravan leaders, who had a story for each
image on their sleeve tattoos. But today, the shop was empty. This was no tattoo parlor, no seedy
sweet-smoke nook perched along the harbor. Few patrons of this woodblock print shop knew the
owner carved designs not only into wood, but also into human flesh. He was forbidden from
advertising this service or tattooing without his lord’s consent. His talents were only for certain
Phoenix with certain duties...
“Apologies,” the artist uttered, jabbing the long-handled needle into the taunt flesh of
Maezawa’s palm. “I know it is unpleasant.”
But truthfully, the stabs were distant pinpricks to him by now. He’d done this more times
over the years than he could count. The artist guided the jabbing needle with a thumb and forefinger,
and Maezawa absently recalled days spent spearing fish in the stream by his father’s estate.
“I’ll never understand why those of the kakushibori rank must tattoo the palm,” the artist
said, wiping away excess ink and inspecting the stained skin. “I can hardly think of a more painful
location, except perhaps the bottom of the feet. And besides, a palm tattoo fades so quickly. How
many times have we touched up this design just this season?”

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 “This is the third time,” Maezawa distantly answered.
“The third, you say?” The artist clicked his tongue. “Another location would be more
practical. It would last longer. The back, the shoulder...” He set aside his tools and smothered the
design with aloe. “Why force a kakushibori to endure the pain of palm-tattooing so often?”
Maezawa stared at the marks on his palm, where auburn, saffron, and soot formed an
unblinking human eye.
Never forget...
“Some pains help us remember,” he replied as the artist wrapped the eye tattoo in a loose
bandage.
The wind chime sang at the entrance, and then came padded footsteps. “We’re closed!” the
artist called out, but Maezawa knew without looking that the newcomer was not here to buy
woodblock prints.
The door slid aside. The artist lowered his head as a woman entered the room. “Apologizes,
Isawa-sama. I did not realize it was you.”
Maezawa turned to the newcomer, extending a vertical hand in apology; he could not rise so
swiftly on his old bones.
“That is fine,” the woman said, smiling brightly as she regarded Maezawa. “Greetings,
Asako-san. Do not stand and discomfort yourself on my account.” Her bow was steep. “How
fortunate our paths should cross.”
Isawa Yaeko, a herald of the Council. There was only one reason she would be here.
“Indeed,” he agreed. “How does Master Tsuke fare lately?”
“Troubled,” she replied, and presented a scroll.

“Pardon me, honored elder. Do you require help?”

The woman regarded Maezawa with concerned brown eyes. Her white kimono and red
hakama contrasted brightly against the lush green of the mountainside and the glittering blue of the
surrounding sea. Her black hair shone with a reddish hue. A large basket of water rested against her
hip.
Maezawa shrugged. His belongings were scattered across the road, his torn traveling bag
discarded in plain view. He was out of breath and glistened with sweat, his withered frame resting
on a trunk that he’d dragged this far. The ferrymen had been kind enough to carry his belongings as

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far as the mountain base, but he’d sent them back at the torii arch where the path to the shrine began.
They were eager to obey. They didn’t want to spend any more time on this island than absolutely
necessary.
“Thank you, young miss. I am just resting.” He dabbed sweat from his brow. “These old
bones like to remind me of my age.”
A wry smile tugged at her cheek as she regarded his things. She probably thought he was a
fool. “Where are your servants?” She looked down the road and back. “Are you all alone?”
He gestured at her basket. “I do not suppose you are carrying water to the Shrine of the Sea
Fortunes at the top of this mountain?”
“I am,” she affirmed. “I am Kaito Mai, the keeper of that shrine.”
“This one is Asako Maezawa, a man of little importance.” He tilted his head as she
approached. “I was not aware the shrine had a keeper. Locals said it stayed empty until Spring.”
“I am attending to it while I am here,” she replied. “I will not stay much longer.”
“Then it is my good fortune that I chose now to make my pilgrimage. I don’t suppose I could
accompany you up the mountain?” He made to stand, his stiff knees contesting his effort.
“Of course! In fact...”
Effortlessly, she balanced her water basket on top of her head, freeing her arms to gather his
things. No matter how she bowed and swayed, the basket remained in place.
“That is a nice trick. But you needn’t trouble yourself.”
“Nonsense,” she insisted. Mai unfurled Maezawa’s travel blanket and stacked his belongings
neatly on top so that she could wrap them into a bundle. “It’s terrible that an honored elder should
travel alone. What if something happened?” She paused, squinting at his face. “Have we met before?
You look familiar.”
“I lived among the Kaito at Cliffside Shrine for some time,” Maezawa admitted. “Perhaps
you saw me there.”
She brightened. “Of course! My apologies for not recognizing you sooner.” She bowed her
head. “You advised the late Kaito daimyō, didn’t you?”
He had anticipated being recognized. Cliffside Shrine was a small community, after all.
Humility would be the right play. Disarm her suspicions early. “It is my deepest regret that Nobukai-
sama passed during my time in his service. Although I knew him only a short while, I am certain he
would be proud of how far your family has recently come.”

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 She beamed with pride. “We are rising in the world, are we not?” With deft hands, she tied
the blanket into a bindle. “That leaves only your trunk. I’ll take that for you, if you can carry this.”
“Much obliged.” Maezawa inwardly sighed with relief. He had hoped she would offer to
carry the trunk. It would make things much easier.
“Well, I would not want you to aggravate your injury.” She gestured to his wrapped hand.
“Does it hurt much?”
From beneath the bandage, Maezawa felt the hostile stare of the tattooed eye.
For when you are tempted...
“We can only relate to pain that is our own,” he said. When she met him with confusion, he
shook his head. “Ah, never mind my prattle. No, it does not hurt much.”
“May I ask, what brings you on this pilgrimage? Shrines to sea-bound Fortunes pepper the
coast, north to south.”
“And have them come to me? What poor manners.” Maezawa smirked. “For what I must
ask, I must come to them.”
She paused, regarding him with amusement. “What favor do you ask?”
“Perhaps too much. I am hoping to save a young fool’s soul.”
Her eyes softened. “That is never too much. And there is no distance too far, no mountain
too tall, to seek what you seek.”
He shrugged. “In the end, it may not be up to the Fortunes what happens. But I will take
whatever help I can get!”
She nodded, lifting the trunk. Then Mai gasped, dropping the trunk at her feet. She hissed,
waving her hand.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” Mai uncurled her fingers, revealing a tiny sting. “It must have been a wasp or a
splinter or something. I can treat it at the shrine.”
Maezawa only nodded, but made a mental note of the smooth jade stud he had hidden inside
the trunk handle.

Mai checked in around the Hour of the Boar. Maezawa knew she could not see his face in the gloom
with his back to the sliding door. Even so, he kept his eyes closed and his breathing gentle, until he
finally heard the door slide shut again, and then her footsteps fading as she ventured deeper into the

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shrine. If the Fortunes were kind, she would not have noticed the dusting of colorless powder at her
feet, paying no mind when she stepped in it.
Maezawa counted to ten, then sat up. His eyes were already accustomed to the darkness, so
he gathered his things as quietly as he could, then lit the candle in the paper lantern he procured
from his trunk. Mai had kindly allowed him to sleep on the floor in the commons, even affording
him a guest’s privacy. But he was certain that she would check in on him during the night. They
always did.
He rolled the door aside softly. The shrine’s branching hallway stretched beyond the light of
his lantern, and he saw no sign of Mai.
Maezawa rummaged blindly through the pocket of his sleeve until his weathered fingers
found the smooth vial. It was the second half of a Kitsuki mixture; he’d forgotten the true name, but
the magistrate who’d given it to him called it “Fox’s Footsteps.” The first half he’d scattered on the
floor hours before now. He uncorked the vial, poured himself a handful, and whispered a prayer to
Saibankan, the Fortune of Justice, before tossing it into the hall.
A trail of pale green footprints appeared where the two powders touched. As he’d hoped,
Mai had unwittingly tracked the first half of the illuminating mixture. Whispering his thanks,
Maezawa followed the faintly glowing trail, pausing now and again to toss the mixture and conjure
new prints at each junction. Each print was fainter than the last, and it occurred to him that if she’d
left the shrine, or gone a significant distance, then his efforts, and the expensive powder, would have
been wasted. Perhaps another prayer was in order...
Just as he began to fear that he would run out of powder, Mai’s footprints took a drastic turn,
seemingly ending at a rice-paper wall. It appeared much the same as the others, but if he held his
breath, he could hear a faint whisper on the other side. He set the lantern down, careful to place it
so his shadow was cast behind him instead of against the wall. You’re taking many risks tonight, he
thought as he drew his tantō and stealthily cut a slit through the thick paper. He knew acting on the
first night was too quick, and it was wiser to just observe for now, but there was an urgency rolling
in his belly that he couldn’t explain. He wanted to be done with the entire affair.
Beyond the slit was a hidden room. Peeking through, Maezawa spotted Kaito Mai with her
face against the corner. In her hands was a tome, a number of bound scrolls with no cover. She
whispered words from an unfurled page as if reciting to someone. But there was no one else there,
at least not that he could discern. Before her was an altar, and in the dim light, Maezawa could just

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make out something small and unmoving on its surface. Something wet and fleshy. A fish’s innards,
probably, or a bird’s.
Grimly, he returned the knife to its sheath. He’d been doing this for a long time now. Every
instinct told him she was mahō-tsukai, yet her words did not have the dark tone of a benediction to
kansen, the corrupted malevolent kami twisted by Jigoku’s taint. No, her tone was closer to that of
the Brotherhood of Shinsei, the sing-songy poetry favored by the Topaz Sutras. He raked his mind
for something else familiar about this scene, but recalled nothing.
The corner shadows stirred like a curtain. Mai stopped and spun, a startled deer, staring
directly into the slit in the wall.
Then, a bloody eye filled Maezawa’s vision.
A thundercrack, and the wooden frame of the wall shattered. Maezawa struck the opposite
wall with a teeth-shaking jolt. His vision bleached, and he collapsed. Kaito Mai’s voice cried out,
“No! Leave him alone! Please!”
The narrow hall filled with supernatural wind, whipping at his robes and beard. He shook
his head to restore his senses. Mai had dropped the tome, and the wind tore the pages away,
engulfing them in a whirlwind of papers. Maezawa pulled his wakizashi free. His knees shook as he
forced himself up.
A gust wrenched the blade away, and a sheet sliced across his arm, leaving a thin papercut.
Then another slashed against his cheek. He felt his blood being drawn from the wounds, thin red
threads dangling in the air. A shapeless form hovered at the whirlwind’s center, faint but becoming
more solid, more red. Another stinging cut, this one against his lip.
The lantern. It was his only hope now. He dare not look at it, lest the creature know his
intentions. He closed his eyes as the wind battered him, picturing where he’d placed it...
“Here!” Mai shouted. She held up a vial. A thick dark liquid coated the inside. Even in the
chaos and gloom, Maezawa could tell what the vial contained.
The wind halted. The papers hovered. The immutable form seemed to waver, indecisive.
“This is what you want, right?” Mai pleaded. “Take it! My blood for the pilgrim’s life!”
It was now or never. Throwing himself at the lantern, Maezawa tore the paper shell away,
revealing the jade-laced candle within. The room lit with an unfiltered holy glow.
A flash. Heat, like a hearth against his face. The papers combusted into ash. With the blink
of an eye, the thing was gone.

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 Maezawa slumped to the floor. His joints were on fire, his head throbbing. He made no effort
to stand as Mai tossed aside a hidden door and vanished into the hall beyond. I need to go after her,
he thought. She was mahō-tsukai. Every moment was a chance for her to bargain again, to weave
her blood magic, or perhaps even give her name to an oni! But he simply had no energy. So he sat,
panting, while his heart thudded like a prisoner’s fists.

It felt like an eternity before his knees would cooperate again. By now, the jade candle had all but
burned down. He scooped up his sword and followed Mai’s path. It led to a spiral stair, rising up.
The lighthouse, the shrine’s most distinguishing feature. He almost laughed at his poor luck. Of
course he’d have to climb.
He called, “I do not suppose you are willing to come down?”
No reply.
The trip up was agony. The fight had aggravated his old wound; his right knee would not
support his weight. He leaned against the wall and used his sheathed wakizashi as a cane.
He tried again. “I’ve never seen a kansen take that form before. And those pages, they were
not mahō writings, right?”
Again, nothing.
He sighed. Fine. Have it your way, then.
The open top was like the inside of a massive stone lantern, or an eight-columned pagoda.
But the mirrors that amplified the torch were dark. Only the moon lit the interior. Panting in the
doorway, catching his breath took longer than he would have liked, but Mai was not pressing her
advantage. She had her back against the railing and a long fall to the rocks below. She held a knife
against her palm, as if to shed her blood and assail him with demons.
But she didn’t. She just waited, almost politely.
They both stood like that for some time, him hunched over and gasping, her silent and still.
At last, Maezawa broke the silence. “So, you suspected me all along?”
She nodded. “Rumors said you were the reason Nobukai-sama died.”
“Rumors exaggerate.”
“But rumors are why you’re here, right?” The little knife flashed as her face hardened. “Or
were you sent by my sensei? She was always threatened by my epiphanies.” The girl looked hurt.
“You believe what they say about me?”

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 Leaning his sword against a pillar, Maezawa drew his pipe and dug for his smoking grass.
“You are the one with a blade to your palm, Mai-san.”
She swallowed, a concession to his point. “I didn’t call the kansen to this place. They were
already here.”
He searched her gaze. In his experience, mahō-tsukai would say anything to escape justice,
but she didn’t seem to be lying. And if she had not summoned tainted kami to this shrine, then what
did?
“I know how it looks,” she continued, “and while it may be true that I have communed with
the kansen, and I have even offered blood to hear their voices, I am no bloodspeaker.”
He nodded. “I know.”
Her brow pinched in surprise. “You... know?”
“Of course you’re not. A bloodspeaker would not make such beginner’s mistakes.” Maezawa
packed the pipe with his thumb, then searched for his striker. “For one, they would never cut the
palm. Too many delicate tendons, too much risk of infection or permanent damage. Bloodspeakers
cut across their forearm with a special knife. Less risky, easier to conceal.” Finding his striker, he
lit the pipe, then took several puffs. “No, I’d guess you saw palm-cutting in a play or painting or
something. You are self-taught and you work alone. You wanted power, and this is how you could
get it.”
Her face turned pale. “Who are you really? Why did you come here?”
“I already told you. I am Asako Maezawa. And I have come to save a young fool’s soul. If
she will listen.”
Realization washed over her. “So, there really are inquisitors.”
There would always be rumors that the Phoenix Inquisitors—the secret magistrates of the
Elemental Council—were real. What mattered was that the rumors were not dependable, and mostly
incorrect. Misinformation served their purposes. If only those rumors had been a deterrent now.
Mai slowly lowered her knife, but planted herself, squaring her shoulders and jutting out her
bottom lip. “Well, you’re wrong about one thing. I didn’t trade blood for power. I wanted to redeem
them and ease their suffering.”
Now that was new. “Redeem them, you say?”
“Yōkai are trapped in cycles of rejection and clinging. Their forms are reflections of their
preconceived notions. They know no other way to exist. They cling to their hatred and pain just as

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they revile it. This is no different than grasping a hot coal with the intention of burning another.
They only harm themselves.” She smiled, but he could see she was shaking. “Kansen are just a kind
of yōkai, honored elder. Through compassion and respect, I believe they can be cleansed of the taint,
returning to their former selves.”
She was quoting the Jade Shore Sutras, a syncretic text that blended generations of
shugenja’s musings on the way of Suitengu with the wisdom of the Tao of Shinsei. It had its place,
but was not for beginners. Somehow, she’d extended the teachings to kansen and drawn these
conclusions. Maezawa wondered how many generations the Jade Shore Sutras had kept from the
true path to enlightenment.
“I know you’ve come to stop me,” she continued. “But doesn’t the Tao teach us to extend
our compassion to all beings? I want only to cleanse them. I am asking you to let me.”
He took a long puff from his pipe. “Let me tell you a story, Kaito-san. It is about a young
boy who once lived on a bay. Every day, he would take his father’s boat out to harvest kelp. Often,
he saw sharks. He felt bad for them, because he believed that by eating innocent sea creatures, they
were dooming themselves to a worse reincarnation. If only they knew what they were doing, then
they could be saved. He decided one day that he would swim out to them and teach them to eat kelp
instead.”
She frowned. “I know what you’re trying to—”
“But the sharks,” he continued, “they were mindless. They lived only to eat. He was bitten,
and as he bled, more came. What do you think became of him?”
When she didn’t reply, he took one last puff and emptied his pipe over the side. “Kansen are
not mere yōkai. They are not confused. They are tainted spirits. They want only to feed.”
“Does the Jade Shore Sutra not say, ‘There is no stain so dark that it cannot be cleansed
away?’” She faltered over the last words, holding back an emotional swell. But she did not break.
“I cannot abandon them. They need help.”
“I am familiar with that sutra. What else does it say?”
She didn’t reply.
He stepped forward. “‘No being can redeem a soul, except for that soul itself.’” He risked
another step, halting when her fingers twitched and the blade returned to her palm. “If the sutras
apply to both spirits and mortals, then a mortal cannot redeem a lost spirit on its behalf. The lost
must redeem themselves.”

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 She cast him a wry smile. “Yet some would still try.”
A lump formed in his throat. He could only nod.
“I won’t let you kill me.”
He couldn’t look at her. Why is it always someone young? he thought. Someone hopeful,
misled, and seduced? Just once, can’t the target be an old, evil, power-hungry servant of Jigoku?
Must whomever I kill always be someone who only meant well?
He pointedly glanced at his wakizashi against the pillar, just within reach. “It would be a
mercy, child. Painless. Not like the path you have chosen. That path leads to a more complete death
than my blade could inflict. Not even Shinsei would feed himself to the sharks.”
He extended his hand. The bandages around it were loose. A gust of wind tore them away.
“You don’t understand,” came her calm, sad reply. “You don’t know what it is like to be
marked because you want to help others. To be distrusted by everyone because you try to save
beings that others call lost. To endure the pain, over and over, and know that the reason it stings is
because you made that choice. Out of compassion, you chose, and doomed yourself to be alone.”
Maezawa stared at his tattooed palm. “Actually,” he whispered, “I do.”
Must I always be culling from the best of us?
The flash of the knife as she crossed the room was slower than the flick of his wrist. When
she saw the eye tattooed there, she flinched. It was all the time he needed to draw his blade free.

The sampan boat rocked beneath Maezawa’s feet as it pulled away from the island. His gaze lingered
on the shrine at the top of the mountain. The lighthouse peeked just over the trees. It would be
months before the Phoenix sent priests to re-consecrate the grounds, but that could not be helped.
“Asako-san,” the ferryman spoke as he approached, “We are making good time. Would it be
permitted for the oarsmen to—”
A wave tilted the boat. A round object rolled out of his bags and onto the deck: his kubi
bukuro, a net filled with something round. Unseeing brown eyes. Black hair with a reddish shine.
Maezawa carefully returned the heavy net to his bag and handed a coin to the paling
ferryman. “I’m in a hurry,” he said. “No delays, please.”
The ferryman nodded, swallowing hard. Maezawa thought he would leave, but instead he
seemed rooted to the spot. Maezawa turned away and looked down at his palm. The unblinking eye
tattoo stared back. If he closed his eyes and blocked out the splashing oars and the sea wind, he

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could still hear his sensei’s voice the day he’d reached the high rank of kakushibori, and received
this tattoo, his secret badge of office.
“It is for when you are tempted, Maezawa-san. Fight monsters for long enough, and you
may well become one. This is so you never forget. We are always watching.
“Always.”
“Was that the witch’s head?” the ferryman suddenly spoke. “Is she gone? Does that mean...
will the fish come back now? The birds? Is it safe to live here again?”
“Only Fortunes know,” Maezawa replied. He couldn’t shake the notion that his tattoo’s ink
was fading. It would need touching up.

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Doji Shizue took a deep breath of the fresh air and levered herself to her feet with her cane. The stir
of activity around her meant that the caravan’s rest break would soon end, and she would not be
chivvied into the travel palanquin like an unruly child, no matter now satisfying it would feel. Crane
and Unicorn samurai put away whatever they had been amusing themselves with—dice, mostly—
and started getting ready for the next stretch of travel. They would march or ride, enjoying the
pleasant breeze and the sunshine on the rolling land around them. Shizue would ride in a palanquin.
Not her palanquin—the one she used in Otosan Uchi or Crane lands—that was spacious, well-
padded, and airy. This was a travel palanquin, built for speed. It was small and cramped, with only
a single tatami for padding and tightly woven reed walls that were supposed to keep insects and
travel dust away from their passenger, but which also kept out cooling breezes and light. She slid
open the door with slightly more force than was needed and got in.
The usual noises of preparation filtered though as Shizue tried to find a less uncomfortable
way to sit. If she could ride a horse, she thought, she wouldn’t need the palanquin. She allowed
herself a few moments to imagine what it would be like, and then banished the daydream with a
smile. However useful they might be in travel or war, a horse was of little use to a courtier who
spent most of her time in the Imperial City.
A loud, shrill yell interrupted her thoughts, and the noises around her abruptly changed
character. Shizue slid open the door, and the chaos of battle swept across her vision. Shouting
warriors were rushing the caravan, pushing their way through the outer guards. The startled Crane
and Unicorn guards were fighting desperately. Words rang in her ears: “Form a line! Drive these
Lion dogs back!” As Shizue watched, a Unicorn samurai swung herself onto her horse and then

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immediately kicked it. The beast reared with a furious cry, and its hooves fell upon a samurai rushing
toward them, smashing the hapless attacker flat. Shizue saw the life fade from the eyes of a samurai
not much older than her, blood seeping up through cracks in his yellow lacquered armor and from
his lifeless lips alike. A few feet away, another Lion bushi drove a spear into the side of a Crane
guard struggling to his feet, then, without pause, drew her wakizashi and leapt upon a Unicorn
samurai in a cold, killing rage. Blood from the kill sprayed wildly, splashing across Shizue’s face.
Time was frantic, and yet each second seemed endless to Shizue. Kakita Yoshi had entrusted
her with negotiating an alliance with the Unicorn Clan. If she died here, or was taken captive, she
would have failed him. She would fail her clan, which needed the aid the Unicorn Clan could offer.
Worst of all, she would fail her sister Hotaru, who had been her guide and ideal since she could
walk. That was an unbearable thought, and the fear of failure pushed back her horror at the unfolding
scene just enough. Shizue felt chills through her limbs as she began to move.
Father, guide me, she prayed, and she crawled out. In the yells and screams of combat, no
one paid any attention to a small, unarmored woman huddled near a palanquin. Shizue resisted the
urge to cower from the noise and the smell of blood and looked about. A trio of Crane samurai
surrounded by Lions caught her eye; they were equal in numbers, but the Cranes were on the
defensive. If she hurried across and threw herself on one of the Lions she could—no, that was
foolish, she thought. But it did give her an idea. Shizue grabbed her cane from the palanquin and
shifted her position until she held it overhead, gripped in both hands, pointing toward her target. It
was a move she had perfected when Fumio was a kitten, but then she had been lobbing the cane
with only enough force to startle an overly curious cat with some noise. Now she tried to focus all
of her will and strength into her throw as she launched it at the back of one of the Lions.
The cane bounced off of her target’s armor harmlessly, but a small jerk of his head showed
that he had felt it. Then the Lion crumpled as the Daidoji he was fighting pierced his stomach with
a naginata, forcing him to the ground. Emboldened, Shizue cast about, seeking something else to
throw. A flutter of motion caught her eye, and she looked toward the west to see a troop of mounted
warriors.
Long spears and curved blades glinting in the sunlight, purple and white ribbons streaming
in the wind, the Unicorns swept up and over the camp, catching the Lion samurai like the tide
catching driftwood.

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No one wrote poems about the immediate aftermath of a battle, Shizue mused. She wasn’t sure it
was possible; her jumble of fear and relief was too sharp to be contained by flowing strokes of
calligraphy. And it had ended as suddenly as it had begun, the rout of the Lion contingent complete
in mere moments. The soldiers around her occupied themselves with making arrangements for the
dead and deciding what to do about the fact that the hired palanquin-bearers had all fled when the
Lion attacked. She sat and tried to unravel the tangled threads of her emotions.
One of the Crane soldiers—a Daidoji judging from the crest on his armor—came up carrying
her cane. He was smiling. “They say Doji Satsume gave his clan two fine warriors to defend it. Now,
there is a third.”
Shizue accepted the cane he handed her, blushing furiously. The idea that her actions made
her the equal of her siblings seemed foolish. “Please, do not speak of my actions,” she said. Seeing
the look on the Daidoji’s face she added, “The stories would be a distraction.” And would make her
feel incredibly vain.
“In my family, we say that the first Daidoji was born a Doji.” He went down on a knee, gave
her the warrior’s salute, and then left, leaving Shizue blinking in confusion. Before she could
recover, a tall Unicorn woman bearing the Utaku family crest strode up.
“What madness is this, to creep along in a palanquin? Do the Crane not know there is wisdom
in speed?”
Poor manners were something she was prepared to deal with. Shizue levered herself up and
stared coolly at the Unicorn. “I am Doji Shizue, sister of the Crane Champion Doji Hotaru and
emissary to the Unicorn Champion Shinjo Altansarnai. Who are you?”
“You are the storyteller?” The woman sounded impressed. “The Crane Clan has honored us
greatly, then. I am Utaku Kamoko.”
“It is an honor to meet you,” Shizue said, bowing respectfully. “And your arrival was very
welcome. I have seen many beautiful sights, but none more welcome than seeing your warriors
sweep into battle.”
Kamoko returned the bow. It was not, Shizue noted, the correct depth, but she supposed it
was close enough for battlefield etiquette. “We are both fortunate. My troop is moving to discourage
the Lion from stealing more of our villages, and our scouts found the trail these had left behind
them.” She nodded briefly to where the corpses of the Lion soldiers had been piled.

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 “You have been losing villages to the Lion?” Shizue asked. This was terrible news; if the
Unicorn were themselves beset, how could she convince them to send military aid to the Crane?
“They have taken Onon Village—temporarily,” Kamoko said curtly. She tapped the
scabbard of her sword. “We tried dealing honorably with them. That failed. If they wish to try their
swords against us, we will show them—again—what the Children of the Wind know of war.”
“I do not doubt your clan’s ability to defend its borders,” Shizue said. Kamoko still looked
aggrieved, so she added, “I am only surprised at this show of arrogance on your enemy’s part.”
“I have stopped being surprised by Lion arrogance,” Kamoko said. “They breathe it like the
air. But now we must get you safely to Far Traveler Castle. I wish that I could ride alongside you
and listen to your stories, but I must maintain the border. My battle sister, Ichika, shall ride ahead
to speed your way.”

Shinjo Altansarnai’s private study had the usual size and proportions, but it had been furnished with
strange woods imported from beyond the Empire’s borders. The flowers in the wall niche were
arranged in one of the standard forms, but Shizue had never seen their like before. The clash of the
familiar with the strange disturbed and fascinated her. The tea she was served was delicious, though,
and she recognized the tea set as coming from one of the more famous Crane potters. Comforted by
this show of courtesy, she sipped her tea and waited for her host to speak.
“I remember hearing your stories when I last visited the Imperial Palace,” Shinjo Altansarnai
said. “I look forward to hearing you again here, in my home.”
“I would be most pleased to share them with you and your court.” Shizue had spent the
tedious hours of travel reviewing every story she knew that involved members of the Crane and
Unicorn clans acting in harmony, starting with Doji-no-Kami’s great love for her sister Shinjo-no-
Kami, and continuing on to the near-present with the poet-warrior Kakita Kosho’s journey to learn
Unicorn travel poetry from Ide Rinako.
“First, however,” Altansarnai said, “we must discuss this treaty proposal of which Ide Tadaji
has sent word.”
“And time is pressing, so we cannot waste it with the roundabout chatter that the other Great
Clans are so fond of. We have armies; what do the Crane have to offer us?” The speaker was Shinjo
Haruko, daughter of Altansarnai and the third person in the room. Her presence and the bluntness

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of her question was a clear sign to Shizue that there were people in the champion’s household who
did not favor an alliance with the Crane. It was Haruko, then, she had to convince first.
“In iaijutsu, as in life, there are times that call for slow deliberation and times that call for
swift action,” Shizue said. “I agree that this is a time for swiftness. You say that we have no armies
to offer, and that is true, but the Crane have always cultivated different forms of power. It was not
an army that changed Imperial law to allow the Unicorn Clan to import and sell food in the Empire;
it was the political force wielded by the Crane Champion Doji Chuai, grandfather of Doji Hotaru.
Would you say that this was a small thing?”
“Small or large,” Haruko said, “that was in the past.”
“But its effects continue in the present,” Altansarnai said, “and they are very significant.”
Shizue nodded gracefully at the older woman. “An alliance of our clans would bring the
benefits of sword and brush to both, making both stronger. In these times of trouble, we must seek
strength to preserve the honor of the Empire and the well-being of our clans.”
“It is the Scorpion Clan, and not the Crane, who control the brush of the Empire today,”
Haruko said pointedly.
“It is so, and our power is not what it was before the Great Wave came,” Shizue said. In her
mind, Kyūden Kakita burned. “But things that appear weak today may yet grow into new strength.
I know little of horses, but I do not think you saddle new-born foals and ride them into battle. We
are beset by the Lion, but the Lion have been growling at us for centuries, and we are still here.”
“You would ask us to sacrifice our people in your battles?” Haruko said. “The People of the
Wind did not earn our freedom by serving the other clans.”
“But we do not keep that freedom by rejecting unity, either,” Altansarnai said. “What would
you propose, Doji-san?”
Shizue turned to Altansanari as Haruko sipped her tea silently. “There is much for us to
discuss in settling terms. What resources the Crane will offer, what forces the Unicorn will field,
arranging a marriage to one of your children to seal the treaty—”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Shizue realized that she had made a terrible
mistake. Haruko made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snarl and slammed her teacup down.
Altansanari’s grey eyes went cold like chips of granite, and her lips compressed into a hard, thin
line. Shizue thought fast and threw herself into a full obeisance. “I am so sorry, Shinjo-sama,” she

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said. “In my haste I have not made myself clear. When I said that there would be a marriage
arranged, I meant that there would be a real marriage, arranged by real Crane matchmakers.”
“Get up,” Altansarnai said, “and explain.”
Shizue would rather have stayed prostrate; it made it easier for her to hide her trembling.
She set her face in a storyteller’s calm mask and sat up. “No one wants to invite strife and discord
into their house, so who would wish it on their children? When Crane parents hire a matchmaker,
one of the things expected is that the matchmaker will find their child a spouse with whom they can
live in harmony. Shinjo-sama, you have three children. Does it seem that unreasonable that a Crane
matchmaker could not find a good spouse for at least one of them?”
“Who the Crane would consider a good spouse,” Haruko said acidly.
“I do not think our standards are so different from yours,” Shizue said. “Consider Doji
Kuwanan. He is bold in war, amiable to his friends and family, devoted to his clan, and, may I note,
very handsome. Would you reject such a suitor out of hand?”
“You would offer us the Crane Champion’s brother?” Altansarnai said. Her tone was a
combination of surprise and suspicion.
“As an example,” Shizue said. “It may be that, among the Crane nobility, there is a more
suitable husband for Haruko-san. Or consider your appointed successor, Shono. A wife with a
courtier’s training would be a splendid political advisor, would she not?”
“And a lever the Crane could use to manipulate my clan, to make it more like yours,”
Altansarnai said.
Shizue recognized the danger in the Champion’s statement and realized that she needed to
confront it head-on. “Shinjo-sama, I have been warned to avoid roundabout chatter, so I will speak
bluntly: You cannot be a part of the Empire, and know its ways, and yet be forever untouched by it.
Would that benefit you? I have heard from—” she almost stumbled, mentioning Shaihai’s name,
“from Unicorn courtiers that your clan’s strength comes from your ancestors’ decision to adopt new
customs when they made sense. What would your ancestors think of this? Would they shy away
from any talk of change?”
“So, the Unicorn will change, and the Crane remain the same,” Haruko said.
“There will be those among the Crane who will think that,” Shizue said, “but they are
ignorant of poetry. Everyone has noted the difference in Kakita Kosho’s haiku after his year of study

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with Ide Rinako. His students established the Red Bridge School, which has long been a foundation
for the compositions of countless poets of many different clans.”
“Changing poetry is one thing,” Haruko said, “but it will not halt a Lion’s sword or an
ashigaru spear.”
Shizue’s upheld hand indicated she was not finished. “As with Rinako and Kosho, I believe
there are practices unique to your clan that would benefit us in this era of change and growth. My
lord Hotaru would be willing to consider sharing your ways with our clan, and thus—.”
“Enough,” Altansarnai said.
In the silence that followed, Altansarnai poured herself some tea and slowly drank it. Shizue
took a quick glance at Haruko, who regarded her mother with a certain wariness. It was an
expression the storyteller didn’t know how to interpret. Had she been too blunt? Did the Unicorn
Champion hate Ide Rinako’s poetry? Was her dissatisfaction with the treaty-marriage the Lion had
brokered with her so strong that she would never accept another? Could she convince Hotaru to
accept a treaty of such importance that didn’t involve a marriage?
“This is a dangerous time,” Altansarnai said, “and it will not benefit my clan to stand alone
in the Empire. Many clans have shown interest in gaining the power of our horses, but only the
Crane have shown willingness to embrace our unique ways. I will accept your offer of alliance, and
a marriage to seal it, but with a condition of our own: that my child would be able to meet the
matchmaker’s choice and could reject them if needed.”
It was an odd stipulation, Shizue thought with relief, but not one worth losing an army over.
“Of course,” she said. “Your child will see for themselves the excellent work that our matchmakers
do.”
“You will be sending an army to the other end of the Empire to fight for the Crane, mother,”
Haruko warned.
“No, I will not be sending an army,” Altansarnai said. She smiled widely at Shizue’s gasp.
“I will lead the might of the Blue Horde into battle myself against the Lion. Their arrogance is
tiresome, and I think it is time someone taught them some courtesy.”
For a moment Shizue, was speechless as she tried to imagine all the implications of the
Unicorn Champion herself coming to the aid of the Crane. Could the darkness over her clan be
lifting at last? Then she bowed deeply to Altansarnai. “They will not forget your lessons, Shinjo-
sama, and I look forward to telling those stories to your grandchildren.”

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“I look forward to hearing them.”

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“Seppun-san,” Akodo Toturi asked, “why, exactly, are we here?”
A restrained patience tightened Seppun Ishikawa’s reply, like he was answering a child.
“Once again, Akodo-san, we are going to meet someone.”
Toturi narrowed his eyes. He’d been to the Higashikawa District perhaps one other time in
his life, but was put off by its freewheeling, garish, commercial character. The racket of street
vendors and merchants, hawking what struck him as mostly junk, clamored around them. At least
the rabble was good at distracting itself, barely glancing at the two of them, apparently unremarkable
rōnin in drab kimonos and broad, conical straw hats.
Toturi kept his gaze on Ishikawa. He was tempted to simply command him to stop being so
enigmatic, and actually answer the damned question; being the Emerald Champion, he could do
that. But he didn’t, because it might upset their fragile... not friendship. Relationship, at best. In the
past three weeks, that relationship had settled into an equilibrium, albeit one as delicate as dragonfly
wings. The fact was, Toturi needed Ishikawa. The Seppun provided him a window into the politics
and bureaucracy of the Imperial court, one he wouldn’t otherwise have, at least as long as he sought
to anonymously track his would-be assassins.
Three weeks had also given them no leads beyond ruling out a few, admittedly unlikely,
perpetrators.
Ishikawa slowed as a crowd spilled out of a shabby sake house called Bitter Oblivion. The
resulting commotion gave Toturi a chance to lean close to the Seppun and speak.

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 “I would know where you are taking us, Seppun-san. And do not tell me, yet again, it is to
meet someone.” Toturi glanced around. “This part of the city is reputed to be a haven for
criminals…”
“Which is true,” Ishikawa shot back. “We are meeting with one of those very criminals, in
fact. He may have information of value to us.”
“We—” Toturi blinked. “Why are we meeting with a criminal? How do you even know such
a—”
“Akodo-san, please! This is not a conversation suited for the street!”
Toturi scowled again. He was more than tired of being treated like an errant, annoying boy,
and was about to say so. But another voice, loud and slurred by alcohol, cut him off.
“You, Bayushi, owe me an answer!”
“I owe you nothing, Kakita! Now, I await your apology! Otherwise, I will give you
something, indeed—the edge of my blade!”
The crowd that had tumbled out of Bitter Oblivion had encircled the two speakers. They’d
squared off as though to duel, each with a hand on his katana. It might have been a moment of high
drama, if not for the way each wobbled on their feet, their words slurred and much too loud.
Snickers from the onlookers didn’t help, nor did the fact some were now taking bets. Toturi
watched, but Ishikawa leaned in and said, “Akodo-san, this has nothing to do with us. Let us just
carry on.”
Toturi nodded. It was exceedingly unlikely either of these samurai had permission from their
lord to risk their lives in a clash of steel—especially one carried out in a grubby street, fueled by
alcohol, anger, and the urgings of drunken onlookers. But Ishikawa, he had to reluctantly admit, was
right. This wasn’t their affair. He started to turn away.
“It is you who needs to apologize, Bayushi!” the Kakita barked. “Apologize for your entire
clan! Honorless dogs, all of you! Dogs and... and opportunists! Usurpers, even!”
Toturi turned back.
“How dare you,” the Bayushi growled back. “You have one chance to apologize for the slur
you have cast on me, my clan, and my esteemed Champion... who is owed your loyalty, as the Son
of Heaven proclaimed—”
“The Son of Heaven? He dies, and then an edict appears, claiming your esteemed Champion
is Regent. Yes, how convenient that is!”

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 Ishikawa’s voice hissed in Toturi’s ear. “Akodo-san, we must go—”
The Bayushi drew his katana with a steely rasp. “The only apology I will accept now, Kakita,
is your blood wetting this street.”
An excited murmur rippled through the crowd; another, as the Kakita drew his blade. Toturi
ignored Ishikawa and stepped through the crowd, putting himself between the two.
“Put away your swords,” he said, “before you further dishonor yourselves and your clans!”
Stunned silence.
The stark reality of what he’d just done slammed into Toturi, like a thunderbolt from Osano-
wo. Such a command, uttered by the Emerald Champion of Rokugan, would have driven them all
to drop in abject obeisance and press their faces into the dirt. Uttered by Toturi the apparent rōnin,
though...
The Kakita almost sputtered with outrage. “You... you dare to meddle in the affairs of your
betters, wave-man? You... dare?”
The Bayushi just gaped in furious disbelief.
The Kakita swung at Toturi, a blow that would have decapitated him. Toturi dodged, then
swept out his own sword and deflected the next blow from the Kakita, and the next. He desperately
sought out Ishikawa, but the Seppun was nowhere to be seen. Steel rang as the Kakita struck yet
again, and again, he deflected the blow.
Toturi’s mind raced. Aside from swallowing his pride and simply fleeing, he had no idea
how to end this. He had to keep dodging and deflecting the drunken strikes, or else strike back and
possibly kill the man, which he didn’t want to do. Nor could he likely talk his way out of it; his
words, even if offered in righteous support of the Emperor, the Regent, and the edict he himself had
written, would mean virtually nothing, coming from a rōnin. And now the Bayushi closed in as well,
sword raised, fury blazing across his face—
“Out of my way! Now! Move aside!”
Voice thundering, Ishikawa pushed into the fray, his Seppun mon glowing white against his
green kimono. The crowd immediately scattered, suddenly and intensely interested in other things.
The Kakita and Bayushi both spun around, swords raised—then hastily lowered. Both bowed
awkwardly—the Bayushi staggering and almost toppling over—but Ishikawa ignored them, instead
grabbing Toturi’s arm.

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 “I am Seppun Ishikawa, commander of the Imperial guard. You, rōnin, presume to threaten
these honored samurai? I think not. Now, put away your sword. You are under arrest!”
With a hard yank, Ishikawa unceremoniously pulled Toturi away.

Ishikawa, once more garbed as a rōnin, stopped at a bend in the Street of Possibilities and nodded
toward a tea house named Fortune’s Rest.
“That is our destination, Akodo-san. Inside, you are likely to witness things that are, by any
standard of civilized society, certainly immoral, and quite possibly also illegal.” His hard gaze bore
into Toturi’s. “Please tell me now if you intend to pursue each of these sundry wrongs as an Imperial
offence. If so, you should probably wait out here.”
Toturi met Ishikawa’s glare with one of his own. He had to put effort into it, though. He was
angry at Ishikawa for arresting him, yes. But he was angrier with himself for creating the situation
that made it necessary—and, Toturi had to admit, it had been a clever way of defusing something
that could have become ugly. Still, he couldn’t put aside the thought that the Seppun, having
revealed himself, should have at least chastised the Kakita for his subversive words. That such a
thing would be said so openly, in a street in the Imperial capital...
“I am the Emerald Champion, who, as you may recall, is the Chief Magistrate of Rokugan,”
Toturi said.
“That is true, Akodo-sama,” Ishikawa shot back. “But, as you may recall, you are also in
disguise—as a rōnin—in order to remain inconspicuous. Intervening in every petty transgression
we encounter would seem to undermine that, would it not?” Toturi opened his mouth, but the Seppun
went on. “It would also make us even more egregiously late for our meeting within this tea house.
So I will ask you again, will you keep your focus on the business at hand once we go inside, or will
you wait out here?”
Toturi glared at the Seppun, infuriated at his brusqueness, at the way he kept interrupting, at
his general lack of respect. But Ishikawa just glared right back.
What especially galled Toturi was that Ishikawa was, again, right. Choking back his
indignation, he finally nodded. “I will accompany you. And if we happen upon a murder in progress,
rest assured I will remain a bemused bystander. Perhaps I will even place a wager upon it.”
It would have been a biting retort in court. Spoken here, in a grubby alley, Toturi’s sarcasm
just flopped into the muck, and lay there like something dead.

680
 Ishikawa sniffed and turned away.
The interior of the tea house belied its shabby exterior. Tastefully lit by delicate lanterns,
Toturi saw patrons kneeling at polished tables set with passably elegant tea services. The air held a
soft, warm smell as they walked through the place, both earthy and spicy. He felt eyes on them and,
sure enough, saw at least two transgressions of Imperial law along the way, one involving illicit
opium, the other an exchange of what were obviously travel papers between two samurai, neither of
whom were likely magistrates. Gritting his teeth, Toturi just walked on, following Ishikawa.
They reached the back of the tea house, where a heimin woman knelt, arranging a freshly
cleaned tea service on a tray. Ishikawa returned her bow, then said, “I have a longing for Golden
Pearls blend, and I wish for my companion to try Moonlit Snow.”
Toturi had never heard of either of these tea blends before, but the woman bowed again,
stood, and led them through a silk curtain, then up a narrow flight of stairs. She paused at the top to
tap gently on a door, which slid open a handspan. She repeated Ishikawa’s request, then moved
aside. The woman who’d opened the door, clearly a rōnin, eyed them warily, but gestured for them
to enter. Inside, Toturi saw a wiry man with wrinkled skin and white hair kneeling at a table. He
wore a plain, brown kimono; a steaming cup of tea, several documents, and a brush-and-ink set were
neatly arranged before him.
The room’s surprisingly restrained opulence made Toturi think of much finer places. The
décor—from artful shoji screens to an impeccably tended bonsai tree—wouldn’t have been out of
place in his own home. The old man smiled and gestured at cushions set before the table. “Please,
my friends, be comfortable. Asuga, please have the tea my esteemed guests requested brought for
them.”
The rōnin woman bowed, gave them a final, hard look, then departed.
“Now, then,” the old man said, “Seppun-sama I know, of course. And you must be the
esteemed Emerald Champion.” He bowed deeply. “This unworthy one is Tamanegi, who sits in awe
of your most honored presence.”
Toturi shot Ishikawa a stunned look, but quickly erased it and turned back to the old man.
“And the Emerald Champion is, in turn, most grateful for your unexpected hospitality, Tamanegi-
san.”
Tamanegi raised a thin, pale hand. “Please, Akodo-sama, your secret is eminently safe here.”

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 “That is correct,” Ishikawa said. “Tamanegi-san and I have an...” He looked at the old man.
“... understanding.”
“Indeed we do.”
Toturi allowed a scowl to leak through his composure, a signal of his displeasure he hoped
Ishikawa couldn’t miss. He was starting to feel as though he’d begun tumbling down a hill, couldn’t
stop himself, and kept falling ever faster instead.
“Tamanegi?” Toturi finally said, anxious to gain some measure of control. “Onion? That is
an unusual name.”
The old man smiled beatifically. “But a particularly appropriate one, if I may say so.”
“Now that the pleasantries have been exchanged,” Ishikawa interjected, “let us get to the
business at hand.” He turned to Toturi. “You say you were attacked by shinobi. I have asked
Tamanegi-san to determine if anyone entered into a contract with shinobi open to such dealings.”
“How would he know such a thing?” Toturi asked.
“If anyone does, it would be him.”
“I appreciate your confidence in me, Seppun-sama,” Tamanegi said, but his smile faded.
“Sadly, despite extensive investigation, I can report no such arrangements having been made. If
shinobi were contracted for the blasphemous purpose of harming the Emerald Champion, there is
no indication of it whatsoever.”
“How certain are you of that?” Ishikawa asked.
“If one presumes that only the most highly regarded and capable shinobi would even be
considered for such a vile undertaking, then I am very certain. There are relatively few of those, and
they are all accounted for during the time in question.”
They paused as the heimin woman who’d led them upstairs entered with their tea. When she
was gone, Toturi narrowed his eyes at Ishikawa. “Are you satisfied with the stunning insights we
have gained here, Seppun-san?”
The Seppun sipped his tea. “You really should try yours, Akodo-sama. Moonlit Snow is an
excellent blend.”
Toturi did, if only because the customs of hospitality dictated it. It just annoyed him further
that it was, in fact, excellent.

682
 He sipped again, then put the cup down. Before he could speak, though, Ishikawa placed his
own cup on the table and stood. “Unfortunately, Tamanegi-san, we have other, pressing business.
Until next time. I know, of course, where to find you.”
Something briefly hardened Tamanegi’s wrinkled face. Anger? Resentment? Toturi wasn’t
sure, but it was already gone, replaced once more by that blandly pleasant smile.
“Of course you do, Seppun-sama. May the Fortunes not disfavor you.”
Ishikawa actually smiled at the thinly veiled ill-wish, then led the way back to the Street of
Possibilities.

Toturi kept his silence for a single block, then could restrain himself no longer and stepped into
another dingy alley. Ishikawa glanced back, sighed, and joined him.
“I assume it is now time for you to be outraged at my dealings with Tamanegi,” he said.
“How can you associate with such a creature? He is—”
“A vile criminal, yes. And a powerful one. Probably the most powerful and influential in
Otosan Uchi, in fact.”
Toturi stared. “And you simply... accept that?”
“There would seem to be little point to doing otherwise.”
“How can you be so flippant about this, Seppun-san? That man should be held to account
for what is no doubt a multitude of crimes!”
“So we should have arrested him, then?”
“At the very least, you should not be... in league with him!” Toturi took a step away, then
back. “You not only turn a blind eye to blatant wrongdoing, you exploit it. And for what? The sake
of expediency?”
“Do you know what your problem is, Akodo-san?” Ishikawa snapped. “You have lived your
life apart from the world—first, in the rigid construct of honor that is the Lion Clan; then, in the
cloistered confines of a monastery; and now, in the splendid isolation of the Forbidden City. This
has allowed you to keep your honor pristine, but it has also made you idealistic, to the point of
naïvety.”
“So a dedication to a life of honor is naïve, now?”
“It is a luxury, like those rare blends of tea. Something in which one can indulge, but that
sometimes one must simply do without.”

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 Toturi sniffed. “I believe you when you say that, Seppun-san—that you actually do consider
fine tea and honor to be interchangeable.”
Ishikawa just shook his head. “How do you believe the Imperial Guard functions, Akodo-
sama? By standing about, looking menacing, and hoping that is enough?” He shook his head. “No.
We are proactive. We seek to deal with threats to the Emperor before they even skulk within sight
of the Forbidden City. Dealing with such creatures as Tamanegi is part of such proactivity. Almost
nothing happens in this city without him knowing about it—and, therefore, without me knowing
about it.”
“That is just an elaborate way of saying that you have no difficulty sacrificing your honor
for results.”
“If the result is protecting the Emperor and his family, then you are absolutely right.”
“You sound like a Scorpion.”
“Oh? You mean the clan whose Champion the Emperor saw fit to name as his Regent?”
Toturi glared, but Ishikawa’s retort left him without words.
“There is a bitter truth, Akodo-san,” Ishikawa went on. “There is how the world ought to
work, and then there is the way it does. If you insist on clinging to the first, the second will dance
about you like a sword-master and eventually cut you down.”
Toturi let out a slow breath. “How can you even trust what this Tamanegi tells you?”
“Because he knows what I know.”
“And what is that?”
“Every detail of his organization, and every change he makes to it. It is information his
competitors would dearly love to have.”
“How could you possibly know such a thing?”
“Miya Satoshi provides me with such knowledge and, in return, I provide him with certain
information that, from time to time, comes into my possession.”
Toturi once more shook his head in disbelief. “Miya Satoshi—the Imperial Herald—knows
the detailed, internal workings of a criminal syndicate, here in the Imperial Capital.”
“He does.”
“And how does he know—?”
“I have no idea, nor do I care to.”

684
 Toturi thought about pressing at the stunning revelation that the Miya family daimyo
apparently traded illicit information with the commander of the Imperial Guard, but his capacity for
disbelief had become saturated. Instead, he simply gave up and sighed.
“I must return to Kaede, at the safe house,” Toturi said. “I shall meet you tomorrow, at the
start of the Hour of the Dragon, so we can... proceed with whatever is next.”
At the mention of Kaede, Ishikawa’s face tightened, but he simply nodded and walked away.
It shamed Toturi that the Seppun’s reaction to naming Kaede had felt so... satisfying. But it
also felt like the only time he’d held any sort of advantage over Ishikawa at all today.

Kaede poured tea—a customary Lion blend—and said, “The conclusion, then, is that these shinobi
that attacked you were not mercenaries. So the implication is that the attack was at the direction of
a clan.”
Toturi sipped at the tea. It was familiar and... fine. Good, even. But not as good as Moonlit
Snow, and that just annoyed him all over again.
He put the cup down and looked at his wife kneeling across the table. “That is one possibility,
yes.”
“And another would be?”
“I... do not know.” He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Moreover, all of the clans have access
to shinobi.”
He glanced at a letter on the table; another report from Ikoma Ujiaki, this one detailing Crane
efforts to retake Kyūden Kakita. Matsu Tsuko had seized the castle shortly after also seizing the
Lion Clan Championship. That was something else Toturi knew he had to address—but only once
he had resolved the matter of the attack on him, one way or another. Until then, he must not let it
distract him. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t possibly relevant.
“All of the clans,” he went on, “includes my own.”
Kaede raised an eyebrow. “You suspect Tsuko? Considering her father was killed in a covert
attack by the Phoenix... I would be surprised.”
Toturi had to nod. “No, you are right. When the time comes, Tsuko would—will—confront
me openly. This was not her.”
“That said, one clan does stand apart from the others in their use of shinobi.”

685
 “The Scorpion. Yes. But what would Shoju’s motivation be? I wrote the edict that named
him Regent. I can vouch for its legitimacy. Killing me... it makes no sense.”
And yet, Toturi couldn’t wholly dismiss the thought, either. The slurred words of the Kakita
blustering in the street clung to him like stubborn cobwebs.
The Son of Heaven? He dies, and then an edict appears, claiming your esteemed Champion
is Regent. Yes, how convenient that is!
Again, nothing but a foolish, sake-fueled rant because, again, Toturi had written the edict
himself. He knew better.
And yet... the Scorpion were ever all about subtle, layered schemes. Could the Kakita’s
drunken words contain a kernel of truth? Could Shoju have some endgame Toturi simply could not
see?
“You are tired, my husband,” Kaede said. “Sleep strengthens not only the body, but also the
mind.”
Toturi replied, “I know,” but made no effort to move.
“Of course,” Kaede said, “speaking one’s mind can also be helpful.”
He gave a wan smile. “I am caught on the events of the day, like the sleeve of a kimono on
a stubborn twig. All of the progress we made today was due to Ishikawa’s blatant pragmatism. My
determination to do what was right and honorable only seemed to get in the way.” He sighed again.
“Is Ishikawa right? Have I led such a sheltered life that I am just a naïve idealist?”
Kaede shook her head emphatically. “No. Your commitment to Bushidō is a strength, not a
weakness.” But then she shrugged. “However, there are many types of strength. Wielding a sword
requires skillful judgment to select when to strike, but also physical power to deliver a telling blow.”
“So you are saying Ishikawa is right.”
“Better to say he is not necessarily wrong. But you need not solely take my word for it. After
all, the Tao says, Men know how the world ought to work, then see the way it really does, and ask,
why are these things different?”
Toturi looked at his wife, startled how her words echoed Ishikawa’s. “I do not remember
that passage from the Tao.”
“I do not believe anyone knows, or even can know, the entirety of the Tao,” she replied. “I
only just recalled that passage myself. Perhaps the nature of Shinsei’s wisdom is such that it comes
to us when we need it.”

686
 “And do you believe those words, my wife? Are you also a pragmatist at heart?”
“I am many things at heart,” she said, smiling. “In this, though, it would seem Ishikawa-san
and I are of a like mind.”
And I am not, Toturi’s thoughts finished. But what he said was, “Indeed. In any case, I
believe I shall heed your advice and take to bed. Will you join me?”
“Soon,” Kaede said. “I wish to meditate upon the events of the day—including these things
you have told me.”
Toturi finished his tea, once more finding it—adequate. He kissed his wife and prepared for
bed.
As he lay on the futon, the events of the day kept marching through his mind. They strode
quickly, though, as though rushing to a particular place
....it would seem Ishikawa-san and I are of a like mind...
And now she wished to meditate on those events—events that prominently included Seppun
Ishikawa.
He heard her words still, even when Kaede finally came to bed, and he pretended to be
asleep.

687
The eastern gate of Toshi Ranbo Castle was so used to being barred shut against invaders that it
groaned with protest at being opened, even for something as meek as a lowly merchant’s ox-drawn
cart.
The inner yard’s samurai officer shouted for them and to enter; dressed in a simple cotton
kimono, coat, and apron, Bayushi Kachiko would have been a fool to disobey.
As she and her disguised retinue passed under the gate, the roof granted them a blessed break
from the unceasing pelting of rain, but the reprieve was over all too quickly. Every time she’d forget
that night for a moment, the feeling of Shoju’s dagger across her neck, it all came flooding back in
a sickening rush.
A contingent of ashigaru guards flanked the officer on both sides, their spears upright in
attention. The approaching samurai’s sharp, red-and-black armor was meant to threaten.
Once, it would have been a welcome sight—a Scorpion Clan crest signified a loyal ally who
would have been prepared to die for the Mother of Scorpions in a heartbeat. Now, Kachiko was
nothing. Nobody.
She’d dropped the strings. Now, there were none to pull.
“Hold!”
She shivered again as the traveling party came to a halt and bowed to the castle’s guardians.
Staying in motion meant staying slightly warmer, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had
seen or felt the light of Lady Sun. The goddess hadn’t seen fit to bless their journey, and the days
were only growing shorter. Soon, the rain would turn to slush, then snow. It was only a matter of
weeks before drifts closed the Emperor’s Road, and the Winter Court would begin. Without her.

688
 “Present your goods for inspection,” the samurai ordered. It was her cue to retrieve the small
chest from the cart. The handles almost slipped through her numb fingers, but she held it steady,
waiting, for as long as was needed.
Taro rattled off the contents of the cart as his fingers took an accounting of each and every
barrel, the officer nodding as he went. The rest of her traveling companions held on to the silence
since departing on the Emperor’s Road. Emiko, Denji, and Iri each moved aside or helped Taro
present the goods as needed, but she could still feel their gaze, watching her for any hint of treachery.
They did not trust her. This wariness was partially why they had lasted so long in the Bayushi
Elite Guard. She couldn’t blame a sentry for exercising basic caution.
When the officer finally came to her, a flicker of shame swept over her bare cheeks, but there
was no way the samurai could recognize her like this, and the wide straw hat shielded much of her
face from view. It was inconceivable that the Imperial Advisor would have fallen so far, or stooped
so low. She kept her eyes downcast as she unlatched the box to reveal as much of the contents as
she could without ruining them with rain.
A heimin was subject to the whims of Fortunes and samurai. If, on a given day, the samurai
felt her lord’s allowances too meager, she could demand the chest be opened and pocket a few items
for herself, as the official accounting wouldn’t be taken until they reached the storage barns. If the
samurai had received ill news or been personally slighted, she could tear the box from the merchant’s
arms and turn its contents out into the muddy yard, depriving the merchants of its worth entirely.
Kachiko had engineered her own fortunes, and those of others, since before she’d stepped
foot in the Hall of Lies to learn the arts of manipulation. She’d amassed power by denying it to
others, tempting and deceiving and killing until she was a force to be reckoned with in her own
right, independent of her husband or father or brother or son. It was all worth it—her power helped
the clan.
Now, she was at another’s mercy, waiting for the blow to come or pass.
This chest contained so much more than simple trinkets within its hidden compartments.
These mementos were all that she still possessed of her old life in the capital, when she pulled the
strings.
The blow did not come to pass, and the samurai paid the chest no more than a moment’s
glance.

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 Almost their entire ledger’s worth of supplies had been reviewed when she spied Taro’s
slight bow as he proffered a small string of pennies to the samurai. It was business as usual, even
for one as high of stature as an Imperial Legionnaire. Kachiko lifted her gaze as much as she dared
without catching the samurai’s attention.
Soshi Yayoi’s branch of the family was certainly wealthy enough to purchase her a
commission in the ranks if she’d had no affinity with the kami. And samurai accustomed to high
standards of living had expensive tastes. Surely there was yet some drinkable sake somewhere in
the castle town—for the right price.
She pocketed the information for a different rainy day.
“Hurry up, now!” the samurai shouted over the din of the rain. Kachiko was all too eager to
comply.
“Thank you, samurai-sama,” Taro offered, completing a deeper bow to the legionnaire and
then returning to sit beside the driver. He looked to the rest of them and grinned. “At last, a chance
to get out from under Osano-wo’s piss.” He laughed, and the samurai ignored his crass remark.
Despite the command to hurry, each step was a struggle as she plucked one foot from the
mud, then another. When was the last time she had been this dirty, this cold, or this alone? She
couldn’t remember.
No, that wasn’t true. It had been during the Battle of Ice and Snow, when she’d been held
captive atop the highest floor to await whatever punishment Inazuma no Gendo was ready to mete
out. She hadn’t known then whether Hotaru, her sworn yōjimbō, was coming to save her—or if
Hotaru would instead rejoin the Crane warriors who had begun the assault on the keep.
Hotaru had come for her then—had risked her life and her father’s approval for Kachiko.
But Hotaru couldn’t come to her, now, even if Kachiko dared risk sending her a message and inviting
Shoju’s wrath upon her head. Honor, Duty, and Loyalty demanded that the Crane Clan Champion
stay by her armies’ side. And Duty required that Kachiko accept her fate, for now.
She had never been very good at simply accepting anything. But that was before she had
discovered that the spoiled Crown Prince had murdered his own father in cold blood, nearly
destroying the Hantei name and plunging the Empire into utter chaos. That was before she had tried
to eliminate Toturi to prevent him from staging his own power play. Before she walked the very
fine line separating her from a tree in Traitor’s Grove.

690
 The great doors of the gatehouse shuddered closed behind them, and the inner yard suddenly
felt very small.
Kachiko spied another Scorpion samurai among the Imperial Legionnaires—Shosuro
Hayate. He was too honorable for the Scorpion, and so a more suitable duty was found. But even in
the ranks of the Emerald Champion’s troops, a Scorpion would not forget their duty. Yojiro had
been wise in how he’d reinforced the garrison.
She’d thought she’d been wise in weaving her web. Wise, and clever. Now, her eyes and
ears were all hundreds of miles away. She knew how to groom new informants, but how many did
Yojiro already have under his sway? And how much was she willing to risk?
Taro led their cart to one of the many storehouses built to supply the castle during a siege.
She was under a roof at last, even if it stank of wet hay. Was she expected to help unload the cart as
well? Her arms and legs already ached with the day’s travel, and when she finally stopped moving,
she shook from the marrow of her very bones.
She got her answer when someone she didn’t recognize approached her, bidding her to
follow. She forced herself up the steps and into the building.
Although she was leaving them behind, this was hardly the last she would see of “Taro” and
the rest of the squad assigned to protect her. They would simply assume new roles within the castle
and continue their watch.
Once they were in a side room and the sliding door closed behind them, her attendant helped
her remove the rice-straw mino as she untied her hat. Kachiko peeled off the socks and shin guards
that dripped with mud, her fingers trembling. After wiping her feet with a warm hand towel, she
eagerly slipped her swollen feet into the coarse slippers provided, but by the time she looked up
again, her raingear and attendant had vanished. A plain cotton kimono lay folded on a side table for
her to change into.
The simple garment meant she would need no help to dress. In the palace, she would have
spent those minutes donning her robes being briefed by Ayaka on all that the spy had learned since
the last time they spoke. Surely, her handmaiden would be serving a new mistress by now.
She waited. As the shivering slowly subsided, soft thunder rolled over the castle grounds,
and the minutes passed by. The attendant was not returning.
No one was coming for her.

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 The side room of the storehouse was austere, and where an alcove would have been in a
proper samurai’s house, there hung only a single scroll from the wooden pillar: “The mighty must
fall; the full becomes empty.” The Shinseist saying was a message intended for her, no doubt
delivered on Shoju’s behalf.
Here in Toshi Ranbo, she was stripped of her silks, her jewelry, her masks, her whisperers,
her admirers. She could not even watch her son from afar.
He thinks that alone, I am powerless.
She reached out for the warm towel, but it had turned cold.
Without Ayaka, Kachiko would have to screen her own visitors and send her own messages.
Without Takeru, she would need to ferret out her own secrets.
Without Aramoro, she would have to watch her own back.
Without Asami, she would be forced to honor all of her appearances.
Without Shoju, she would have to serve as her own devil’s advocate.
Without Hotaru, she would be forced to keep her own confidences.
She stared at the scroll for a long time until her cheeks felt warm and wet. When her tears
finally dried, she could feel nothing at all.

The Osari Plains had already become a marsh under the relentless rains of fall, and Shizue’s letter
had made it clear just how much of a quagmire they had found themselves in.
In the darkness of a cloudy morning, the surrounding battlefields shrouded in mist, Doji
Hotaru put herself through her kata. It was practice, not punishment, she told herself.
They’d lost Kyūden Kakita—its priceless treasures and its stalwart defenders—to the Lion.
It was impossible, only it had happened. And on her watch as champion.
You are not good enough for the championship. How many times had her father told her
that?
I would never be good enough, in his eyes. She had come to peace with that. Thankfully,
Daidoji Uji and her brother had already begun the counterattack. Her own role was less certain.
Her generals warned that Matsu Tsuko meant to draw them out from their position on the
Osari Plains. If they left, it would only be a matter of time until rōnin retook these villages, sacking
them in the process and ruining whatever harvest might still be salvageable once the rain abated.
And once winter set in, there would be no getting them back—not until the thaws of the new year.

692
 But could they weather the rest of the season here and risk being pinned in the open like this,
if a sudden frost came? Shouldn’t she command Daidoji Netsu to bring the army south to winter at
Kyūden Doji?
It would be admitting defeat. She refused to be confined to the palaces, not when she was
champion.
How cruel it is that I must be consigned to war when I have only ever wanted to create art.
Is everything beautiful in this world destined to be destroyed or fall apart?
Hotaru whirled the practice stick in her hands, shifting her grip as she blocked mock blow
after blow, drawing on her training for how to fight with her naginata when she was outnumbered
and alone.
She was alone. Her enemies were closing in on the clan from all sides, and her allies were
scattered to the winds. High Priestess Takako prayed to the spirits to keep the storms at bay on their
coasts. Lady Ryoku shielded students and refugees at Shizuka Toshi. Kuzunobu had to make the
long journey from his parents’ estates. And Shizue was leaving for the far west, counting on the
Unicorn Clan’s hospitality—and protection.
Kachiko, though...
There was no reason to believe Kachiko had been involved in Satsume’s death after both
investigations, but it was impossible for the Mother of Scorpions not to be at the center of the current
turmoil at the heart of Otosan Uchi. As Imperial Advisor and wife to the Regent, she held far more
influence than the Shosuro daimyō ever could, and with the heirs missing...
Is it enough? Are you happy now, having amassed so much power?
She thrust the polearm straight ahead, swung it hard to the left, pivoted to turn around.
Is that why you’ve been too busy to write?
Hotaru caught the pole just short before it struck the neck of the grey-haired man who’d
approached her from behind.
“Sumimasen!” she offered automatically, freezing in place. “Are you all right, Toshimoko-
sensei?” she asked, immediately realizing how silly of a question it was. Her uncle casually placed
his hand on the staff ’s edge to lower it, his smile slight and perfectly arrogant.
They were far from their old practice grounds in Tsuma. In his muddied, rough-spun clothes,
he could have passed for a lone rōnin traveler, save for Kandaisa, the priceless Kakita blade at his
hip.

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 Hotaru slowly brought the practice weapon back to her side. “I thought you needed to stay
with your students at the academy. Why have you come, uncle? Kyūden Kakita is under siege, and
Daidoji Uji would be glad to have a champion like you fighting alongside his armies.”
Toshimoki chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest. “If my students need me, then I am a
poorer teacher than I knew. You know I haven’t the patience for sieges. No, I wanted to see what
sort of adventures my favorite niece was getting up to without me.”
She almost laughed. Had the other teachers at the academy even tried to stop him? In all his
many years, no one had been very successful at telling the Grey Crane what he could and could not
do. Not even Satsume could command him.
Hotaru had never had that freedom. She carried the weight of the clan on her shoulders.
“I would hardly call watching our war camp slowly sink into the earth an adventure,” she
said solemnly. “These are dire times.”
“Perhaps not the kinds of adventures we used to get up to, but you are being tested
nevertheless. The situation is dire, yes. But you were born for this. You are restless because your
destiny is at hand.”
She stuck the ground with the butt of her stick. “I must do what is best for the Crane, which
means upholding our honor and solidifying our position on the Osari Plains! I can’t simply hand
these people to the Lion.”
“Where is the fearless duelist from the Battle of Ice and Snow? Where is the darling of the
Winter Court? Where is the slayer of the Lion Clan Champion?” The glimmer in his eye was the
one she had always treasured most as his pupil: the look of a teacher’s pride.
She couldn’t forget how her heart had tightened, taut as a bowstring before she loosed the
arrow. How easily Arasou had fallen, as it were a dream. How fleeting had been her pride, when the
realization set in that she had killed Toturi’s own brother at the gates of Toshi Ranbo.
Hotaru turned to face the north. “Toshi Ranbo...” She paused. “The Lion armies have pushed
to the south. They’re no longer blocking the way.”
“Mmm... so it would seem. You are our lord and champion, Doji-ue. What will you do?”
She said it so quietly, she couldn’t be sure she even it said it aloud. “We will go.”

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Kachiko awoke as if from a nightmare. The layout of the room was all wrong. The air was chill, her
sleeping garments coarse. There was no sound of the bustling city beyond—only the endless din of
rain.
The days caught up to her. Weeks ago, she’d left Otosan Uchi, her home for as long as she’d
been Imperial Advisor. Now she was in Toshi Ranbo, under the protection of Chief Magistrate
Bayushi Yojiro. She had managed to convince the late Emperor that the city should become an
Imperial stronghold in name. In practice, it was a holding of the Scorpion. Here, she could be kept
at arm’s length from Imperial politics. And kept under close Scorpion guard.
She was alone in the room, but the silhouette of her guards stood out against the rice-paper
door in the morning light. A kimono appropriate for her status as wife to the Bayushi daimyō hung
on a stand in one corner.
The desk was empty of any paper, and there was no calligraphy set. Did Shoju think her
foolish enough to reach out to anyone in light of what had happened? She shivered.
“...the only reason you are not now being dragged to Traitor’s Grove.”
She knew better than to defy her champion and husband after such a direct threat. She would
have to be cautious. Lady Shosuro herself must have cloaked Kachiko’s deeds in shadow. Shoju
didn’t know about Aramoro and Toturi—not yet. If he did, she wouldn’t be here right now. Of that,
she was certain.
It was like waiting for a slow-acting poison to take effect. You didn’t know when—or if—
you would succumb.
She made herself dress, but when it came time to do up her hair and makeup, she hesitated.
She allowed herself a mask, here in the tower she shared with no one but her guards. After a simple
breakfast, she began to unpack the belongings that had been smuggled in with the peasant’s cart.
Carefully, she opened up the chest’s hidden compartments. She hadn’t been sure if its
contents would survive the journey.
Hotaru’s fan had survived, but not without time taking its toll. The colors were duller than
she remembered, the wood starting to show wear. Yet that did not change whose fan it was, or what
the gift had meant at the time. She could still hold on to the fan, to the memory.
“Lady Kachiko,” came the familiar voice. It was sadder than she’d last heard it.
“Come in, Chief Magistrate Bayushi,” she said, her voice faltering from disuse.

695
 The sliding door opened and his tabi muffled his footsteps across the polished wood floor.
He kneeled before her, but she avoided his gaze. “I am so sorry that the circumstances surrounding
your visit aren’t more favorable,” he apologized, bowing deeply.
The anger of their last meeting returned like a fire in her belly, but she took a deep breath.
Nothing more needed to be said.
His brows were knit together in concern as he spoke. “I do not know why you have been
bidden to journey to Toshi Ranbo, only that you must be protected and kept here in secret.”
Was he speaking the truth? If so, his ignorance was her opportunity. With a blank canvas,
she could paint her own picture of the events. He longed for her, to be in her confidence, and how
much sweeter would it be if he could be her savior? It would not be so hard to draw him in... to show
him her love...
To begin tempting him, she needed only to unfurl her fan in one slow, languorous motion—
to turn her head to reveal a hint of her delicate neck.
But then what? What would she do with him? Use him to defy Shoju? No, Yojiro would be
too conflicted.
It was too dangerous to tell Yojiro the truth. And if Shoju hadn’t seen fit to fill him in, she
wouldn’t dare give him anything more.
“My sources tell me that things are difficult at the capital right now. The edict has been
declared. Shoju is regent. But the court is unsettled. It is too convenient that the Emperor should die
the night before his abdication. And the princes...” Yojiro’s face sank.
“What of their highnesses?” Kachiko asked, flipping the closed fan over in her hands.
“Both are missing, along with Akodo Toturi.”
Kachiko searched his posture for any sign of wariness. Was that an accusation laced in his
words? Did Yojiro trust her, or did he suspect?
“That is grave news,” Kachiko said sincerely, letting the fan rest. “If the princes cannot be
found...”
Or if Akodo Toturi is found...
The fate of the entire clan lay in the balance. She felt her stomach turn.
If Shoju had told me about the edict, could I have kept the princes safer in the aftermath?
If Shoju had trusted me... would I still be in Otosan Uchi?
If Shoju had trusted me...

696
 She looked directly into Yojiro’s eyes; his entire face lay bare save for the high collar of his
robes.
If I had been trustworthy. If I hadn’t sought power for its own sake, without considering the
damage it could cause to the clan or to others.
“Then Shoju’s regency looks increasingly like a coup,” Yojiro said, not averting her gaze.
“We are all in danger, but as his wife, you are especially so. It is possible that is why he has sent
you here, so that you might be protected from whatever comes next.”
Protected. That could be one way to read her arriving incognito, traveling with an elite guard
retinue. It was a charitable reading, perhaps even naïve.
Yojiro knew better. He knew who she was, what she had tried to do with the Emerald
Championship. But he would not insult her by saying the truth out loud: that she was too dangerous
to be allowed to continue to play at politics. Not when the stakes were this high.
“We will make every effort to keep you safe, but your safety depends on your presence here
remaining a secret. Please—I ask you do not make that harder for any of us. Onegaishimasu.” He
bowed again.
Kachiko turned to look out the barred window, toward the southeastern horizon. To agree
would be to throw away her only key to this cage.
She had no choice.

697
Heavily armored warriors and lightly armored messengers of the Crane Clan thronged the small
court chamber. The retinue of the Tsume family shifted restlessly at the approach of the honor guard.
Doji Hotaru’s resplendent dō armor heralded that she was visiting in her capacity as leader
of the Crane Clan military forces. Daidoji Netsu in his general’s regalia and Kakita Toshimoko in
his understated robes followed close behind.
The lady of the castle kneeled upon a single-step dais, her long black-brown hair loose and
unadorned save for a single silver hairpiece in the shape of a feather above her left ear. Her blue-
silver robes were new, perhaps the finest garments she owned. She bowed to touch her head to the
floor at her champion’s approach, and Doji Hotaru returned the courtesy with a shallower bow of
her own.
“You are welcome at Kyotei Castle, my lord and champion. The samurai of the Tsume
family are honored to extend to you our meager hospitality and eager to serve however we are
needed. We are also glad to hear that you were both victorious and spared from any major casualties
in your march north.”
“Thank you for your welcome, Tsume no Doji Itsuyo-dono,” Hotaru returned. The young
woman may have been new to the clan, having come from the Shiba family of the Phoenix, but her
warrior’s grace and highborn manners were unmistakable. “I am told that you have withstood your
own share of Lion aggression, and that your swordsmanship is matched only by your diligence for
stewardship of the valley.”
Tsuyo unfurled her fan to hide her blush. “I am humbled by your praise, Doji-ue.”

698
 The woman was already acclimating well to the clan, it seemed. The Crane couldn’t afford
to risk losing her loyalty in these troubled times. “Doji Kuzunobu spoke well of you in his letters. It
is a tragedy that you do not have the assistance of a capable spouse to support you in all of your
good work. I will send word to Kakita Ryoku to begin making a suitable match. If you have someone
in mind...”
“Thank you, Doji-ue,” Itsuyo said as she bowed once more.
“Sadly, I am not here simply to arrange weddings, but to prepare for a war. While General
Daidoji Uji retakes Kyūden Kakita, we will press on against the Lion and the Castle of the Swift
Sword, where we can lay siege to them with our Unicorn allies. But first, we must reassert our claim
over Toshi Ranbo.”
The court was silent with the weight of her words. She was committing them to a path from
which they could not walk back. If Toshi Ranbo mounted an earnest defense, they could be bogged
down in a siege that would see them all slowly freeze outside the castle gates. If Chief Magistrate
Bayushi Yojiro objected, she would have brought down the ire of the Empire upon them all. But the
road home to Kyūden Doji was lined with regret—she knew this in her heart. The clan needed this
victory, this well-stocked castle, this staging ground. And she needed to restore her reputation.
“We must be delicate in how we proceed, lest we risk earning the ire of the acting Emerald
Champion, Agasha Sumiko, not to mention the Imperial Regent,” Hotaru acknowledged. If there
was time, she could write to Kachiko at the capital to help soften any ill-considered reactions by
Bayushi Shoju.
But I must act swiftly or not at all. We will be lucky if word of our approach hasn’t already
provoked censure at the capital. For now, she had heard nothing, and so the window of opportunity
was still open.
“First, we will attempt diplomacy,” Hotaru continued, “but if we cannot retake the castle
peaceably, then we must avoid as much bloodshed as possible. If we have allies by our side, we can
prevail.”
“Tsume-dono.” Hotaru’s gaze fixed on the young lord. “There is one other way you can
serve the clan: please, send a messenger to the esteemed governor of Nikesake. I would ask that he
lend us the support of the Phoenix, if he can give it.” Itsuyo’s match had been struck with this very
alliance in mind, but Hotaru wished she could have paid a visit prior to asking so much of her and
her family.

699
 “My champion’s will be done.” Itsuyo held up a hand, and her advisor began inking the
request on paper. “Yet, I know that he will ask that he bring the shugenja of the Isawa to commune
with the disquieted ghosts on the plains.”
A favor demanded a favor in return, but Hotaru was lucky the Phoenix’s request would be
so easy to grant. To what end had Bayushi Yojiro and the Emerald Champion continued to block
their request? What harm could come of putting ghosts to rest? Unless they were simply
overwhelmed... Bureaucracy was not known for its efficiency, as Uncle Toshimoko had always been
quick to point out, usually referring to his brother in the same breath.
“I will allow it. If we can try to surround the city—the Daidoji from the south and southwest,
the Tsume from the east, and the Shiba from the north—we may be able to convince the Chief
Magistrate to surrender command of the city to our joint forces. We will say that we are coming to
reinforce the Imperial Legions, not to attack them.”
The audience murmured to one another, but their tone was one of hope rather than
skepticism. There was a chance they could pull this off.
“Who will deliver this message?” Toshimoko asked, now leaning lazily against one of the
wooden pillars supporting the second-floor gallery. His tone suggested he was volunteering himself.
“It must come from the Crane Clan Champion herself,” said Itsuyo’s chief advisor, who had
the greatest wisdom of years amongst them all. “He will not be able to publicly doubt her word
without grave insult.”
“It is too dangerous to send our champion in with the delegation,” Daidoji Netsu warned.
“What if the ‘honest Scorpion’ is not so honest after all? We cannot risk losing Doji-ue.”
“Doji-ue, permit me to go,” Tsume Itsuyo cautiously offered. “As the closest sitting Crane
lord, I will be arriving as a neighbor, not an invader.”
The murmurs of the audience grew louder as Hotaru considered all of their advice. As she
moved to speak, the court went silent again.
“Tsume-dono, your chief advisor is right, but so is General Daidoji,” Hotaru declared, and
nodded to them both. She turned to face the entire court. “I think you are on to something. I have a
plan...”

Kakita Toshimoko set down the wine bottle on the table with a thump of indignation. “Your plan is
a foolish one, Hotaru, and you know it.” The fierce autumn winds lashed the shutters with rain, and

700
the lamplights quivered in the frigid drafts. The shadows seemed to harden her uncle’s frown. They
were alone now, and so he could speak freely.
“I thought that meant you’d approve,” Hotaru sniped back, downing the cheap wine in one
gulp before pouring herself another. The banquet had gone on long into the night, and egged on by
Kakita Toshimoko’s tales of his youthful exploits and the accompanying toasts, the somber evening
had transformed into a night for no regrets. If this was to be their last night in a relatively warm
castle, should they not enjoy it to the fullest?
“Watch your tongue, Hotaru.” Toshimoko growled. “You may be champion, but even an
Emperor shows respect for his elders.”
She seethed inside, but did not talk back. It had been a long time since Hotaru had imbibed
this much, and her words were now flowing as easily as the wine, but she also remembered her
uncle’s tricks for staying sharp and avoiding the next day’s effects of drinking. She collected herself,
sitting up straighter.
“There is no other way that I can see. Serving by Imperial appointment, Bayushi Yojiro
outranks the master of the Kakita Dueling Academy, even if you are Kenshinzen. His word will
prevail, if he does not believe that you come in peace.”
Toshimoko closed his eyes and shook his head. “It is too dangerous for the clan champion
to be separated from the protection of her armies. The clan is in too precarious a position as it is.”
Hotaru winced. “And that is precisely why I must do this, uncle. You sound like my father.”
Toshimoko scratched his chin. “Satsume certainly had his faults, but that doesn’t mean he
was always wrong.”
“I know,” Hotaru conceded quietly. Whatever she felt about Satsume, Toshimoko was right
about this. “You are just looking out for me. But I tried to do the sensible thing, the proper thing,
and we were only losing ground! And now, Kyūden Kakita...”
She felt her warm cheeks blaze hotter. What kind of champion loses the ancestral home of
the Kakita? How can I possibly command my clan’s respect with such a dark stain on my soul? She
choked back a sob. “The clan needs to hold Toshi Ranbo once more—we must secure our northern
flank and find a refuge for our northern armies. I need to prove that I can bring victory to our clan.
‘Where is the slayer of the Lion Clan Champion?’ you asked me not so long ago.
“She takes chances, leaves herself out in the open to take the shot, if she has to.”

701
 And if I prove unworthy—if my imperfections beget my defeat—then let me die so that
another can right this ship.
“Uncle, you taught me to live each day as if it were my last. I would rather try and fail than
live with regret. If life is fleeting, then let me live each moment as nobly as I can. Let me fulfill my
oaths to my clan. Let me be a worthy leader to them!”
The hair on the back of her neck rose, and her shoulders tensed to contain the ferocity of her
spirit. Something in her uncle shifted, and she knew she must be on guard.
“You must do what you need to do, Hotaru. But right now, I can sense doubt in your resolve.
You must commit yourself fully to this path. The entire body must be unified with the sword, with
your will.”
Toshimoko raised his chin and said, “Prove to me that your spirit is pure!”
There was not a moment to hesitate.
Toshimoko kicked the table out from in front of him, and the wine bottle shattered against
the wall.
Hotaru reached for the sword at her side and threw the scabbard off at the same time that she
tumbled forward, away from where Toshimoko’s blade would land after his iai draw strike. She
found her feet and swung her body and blade right.
He’d anticipated her defensive movement and whirled around, his blade at her throat. But
the tip of her own sword hovered a mere breath away from the sweat beading on his neck.
Still mirrored, they rose to their feet, neither willing to lower their weapons. She hadn’t won,
but she hadn’t lost—yet.
Toshimoko was a Kenshinzen, a title she lacked because she’d never bested her master in a
formal duel. When the time came for her to claim the championship, Toshimoko had not competed
in the tournament, because they both knew he would beat her.
Hotaru forced herself to slow her breath. She was thinking too much, thoughts racing when
she needed the calm of no-mind. She gripped the sword’s handle more tightly. Her hands were
warm, the grip cold and rough. The weight of the metal pulled her in. No, she was the sword.
Toshimoko struck out with a yell, a lunge and stab that she dodged with a quick backpedal.
She cast a quick glance around to take stock of their makeshift dueling ground, but it was too dark
to fully perceive their surroundings. She brought the sword over her head as they circled each other,
waiting for the perfect moment.

702
 Breathe in, out. Toshimoko’s dark blue eyes betrayed no hint of weakness, but something in
his hands trembled as he readied his next strike.
It came like lightning, and this time, she wasn’t fast enough to dodge his blow and the
strewn-about furniture at the same time. She teetered backward and twisted to catch her fall, but his
blade sliced through the fabric of her robe. She prepared to defend her midsection as soon as she
replanted her feet, but they were too close now.
She brought her handle up between his two-handed grip, locking their swords together. The
razor-edges bore down mere inches from their hands.
There was a weakness in his wrists that she’d never felt before as they struggled, and with a
shout she unleashed her strength to push him back. Now he was on the back foot, but they were
fighting with live steel. I don’t want to kill him—
Toshimoko seized upon her doubt and swung once, twice, before bringing his elbow around
to catch her in the side of the head.
Her ears rang and her vision swam, but she still held on to her sword, and she used her other
arm to prop herself up from the titling ground.
“You won’t give up?” he asked.
“No,” she breathed, and struggled back to her feet, readying her blade once again.
She forgot the pain of her body, her heart. She felt the give of the tatami through her socks,
making herself buoyant, light, preparing to spring.
He was waiting for her to come at him again, to dispel all trace of her fear. She had to be
fast, now.
And he was ready. He ducked and dodged, deftly moving out of the way of her wild blows.
She overextended herself and lunged past him, tripping on something she couldn’t see. The butt of
his sword came down hard against her ribs, sending pain shooting up her side and knocking the
breath from her lungs. The force sent her to the floor once again, exposed flesh scraping against
broken glass.
“You cannot best me, Hotaru. Concede!” he commanded.
She shuddered on her hands and knees, gasping for breath. She found enough for the one
word she needed: “Never!”
In a last-ditch effort, Hotaru launched herself forward and swung, the tears streaming down
her face.

703
 Toshimoko was pinned against the wall, the first few inches of her sword pressed against his
neck. A single drop of blood followed the muscle down to his collar bone. His eyes twinkled with a
quiet smile.
“You are ready to face your destiny,” he declared. Hotaru struggled to catch her breath, her
chest rising and falling as her shoulders finally relaxed. Her heart trembled at hearing his conviction.
She was ready. She would see this through.
She lowered her sword, and he bowed. Her guard retinue burst into the room, but she
remained calm.
“All is well,” she reassured them. “Thank you, uncle. For everything.”

The door opened with a loud snap, and Bayushi Yojiro entered. He usually came to visit her after
dinner, not before the midday meal. Then again, there usually weren’t three armies camped out on
their doorstep. Crane and Phoenix banners waved in the wind, along with the gold-and-blue
sashimono of the lord of Golden Valley. It was the only reason she hadn’t immediately jumped to
the assumption that Akodo Toturi’s death—and her involvement—had finally been found out.
“Is this somehow your doing?” he demanded before he even entered the room. It seemed he
had no time for the usual pleasantries and no reservations against overtly questioning the honor and
intentions of the spouse of the Scorpion Clan Champion. She didn’t blame him, really.
Kachiko resisted the urge to smirk and laid down the histories of Toshi Ranbo that she’d
convinced him to lend her from the castle’s library. Even if she was being held in solitary
confinement for “protection,” she could make some productive use of her hours. “No, not this time,”
she answered, half in teasing and half in confession. She instantly regretted the flippant tone, but it
was hard to break old habits.
He took a seat across from her, kneeling on the tatami in the proper seiza position. “What
reason could the Crane have to threaten Toshi Ranbo like this?” he asked sharply, not disguising the
implicit accusation.
“Have you asked Kakita Sukenobu?” The former Crane steward of Toshi Ranbo still lived
within the city, although Yojiro had assumed nearly all of his powers and responsibilities since being
named Chief Magistrate.
“Yes, and he claims ignorance.” His stare was unrelenting.

704
 Kachiko let out a long sigh and met his gaze. The eye contact was uncomfortably intimate.
“I can swear to you, on my honor as a humble servant of the Scorpion Clan, that I have not sent
word to any samurai of the Crane.”
It was the truth, but she couldn’t control whether he believed her. If he chose not to, and
relayed allegations of her treachery to Shoju, it would mean the Grove for her. She was dancing on
the edge of a knife. This is your own doing, she reminded herself.
It was said that it took a liar to know a liar, and Yojiro had never been very good at that
particular Scorpion talent. Nevertheless, he said nothing more as to her loyalties.
It was her move. “What can I assist you with right now?”
Yojiro shook his head. “Nothing. It is better for you to stay uninvolved. I cannot fulfill my
pledge to Shoju if you are discovered.”
“Very well.” Kachiko turned another page within the book, pretending to read its contents.
“Then while I am confined to sit and wait, can you at least tell me if the castle in a position to
withstand a siege?”
Yojiro was no battle-hardened general. He had to rely on the tacticians of the Imperial
Legionnaires, who could either be brilliant or barely competent. His silence was not reassuring.
If the Crane had marched to lay siege to the castle, they could be dead tomorrow, or in several
months’ time. Why had they come, if not to seek revenge for their loss of Kyūden Kakita? But then,
why threaten the Scorpion, and not the Lion? Unless the Crane thought the other clans ready to
retaliate for the brazen power-play that was Shoju’s regency...
That seemed unlikely, with the acting Emerald Champion backing the edict. The left hand
and the underhand of the Emperor had their disagreements, but Hotaru had never been their enemy.
It wasn’t the Scorpion’s fault that the Crane Clan couldn’t honor its usual level of commitments to
the rest of the Empire when its rice stores ran low. Neither was it Hotaru’s fault, no matter what
Satsume would have said. He deserves to be dead. The timing, she admitted, was inopportune.
No, there was another reason why the Crane could be advancing north instead of south.
“Yojiro-san, I believe the Crane forces may want to winter at Toshi Ranbo instead of at
Kyūden Doji.”
“What? Why?” His confusion was plain.
She got up to stand close to the barred window. “Because the Champion of the Crane Clan
sees those palaces as a prison.”

705
 The banners of the gathered forces rose and fell like waves in the wind.
“How would you know that, Kachiko-sama?” Yojiro stood up to join her.
Quietly, she said, “Once upon a time, I got to know her very well while we were enjoying
Mantis hospitality together.” She still remembered their first kiss atop the keep in the snowstorm.
They watched from her tower as a contingent bearing the banners of the Tsume family of
Kyotei Castle approached the gates. The guards ushered them in.
Strange that they have brought rōnin mercenaries among their number...
Unless... She marked the height of one of the rōnin against the size of the gates, watched the
way the figure reached to ensure their daishō was securely fastened, how the figure held back from
the group to take a second glance at the castle’s defenses.
It would be just like Hotaru to...
“Yojiro-san, please, you must allow me attend your reception of the Kyotei delegation. I can
be of help.”
“What? No, it is out of the question.” He looked at her a moment, his brows furrowing.
“Why?”
Sometimes, the simple truth could be just as devastating and as persuasive as the most
meticulously crafted lie. “Because it is possible the Champion of the Crane Clan is paying you a
visit.”
Yojiro’s eyes went wide.

706
“Thank you for taking the time to receive us, Chief Magistrate Bayushi,” Doji no Tsume Itsuyo
began. She led her retinue in a deep bow in the side chamber of the main keep at Toshi Ranbo. The
main audience hall was for proclamations and grand receptions, not the minutiae of actual
diplomacy. The austere room with bare wooden beams, cracked plaster walls, and drafty windows
signified the visitor’s lesser status as a mere vassal family daimyō. “We are grateful for your
audience and the chance to discuss the most recent, if troubling, events.”
The reception would have been a grave insult had Doji Hotaru not accompanied Itsuyo
incognito, dressed as a sword-for-hire.
Yet while the rest of Bayushi Yojiro’s retinue scrutinized the Tsume daimyō’s words to
discern her intentions, Hotaru could only watch the soldier seated far behind Bayushi Yojiro in a
place of low honor.
Of all the people she’d been expecting to find at Toshi Ranbo, Lady Kachiko was the very
last.
Bayushi Yojiro remained solemn, his voice tinged with concern. “Dark clouds gather around
Toshi Ranbo, my lady, and your arrival heralds even more uncertainty. For what purpose do we owe
you the honor of your visit?”
Surely the Imperial Advisor was in Otosan Uchi, where she would be assisting her husband
as he assumed the responsibilities of Regency while trying to locate the Crown Prince. It was
madness for her to be out here at the edge of the battlefields, surrounded by warriors who were
completely defenseless against her charms and cunning, but also completely irrelevant to the games
of court. What use could she be to the clan out here while the capital boiled and seethed?

707
 “As you know,” Itsuyo explained, “the Lion Clan has made many attempts against this castle,
and most recently, one of their number attempted to wrest Kyotei Castle from its rightful rulers—
the Tsume vassal family of the Crane. With the Matsu legions’ most recent aggression against the
very heart of the Kakita family, we believe that the usurper Matsu Tsuko will use the blood feud as
justification for a full-blown war.”
Kachiko wore an otherwise-unremarkable suit of armor made for a Scorpion Clan bushi. The
suit must have belonged to one of the members of the Imperial Legion garrisoned at Toshi Ranbo,
many of whom had been drawn from Scorpion forces. The fearsome mempō of the helmet could not
conceal the dark intensity of her eyes or the delicate curve of her lips, but it was the subtle scent of
sandalwood and jasmine that removed all doubt from Hotaru’s mind. Kachiko’s robes and letters
always bore her signature fragrance.
“We, too, received the news of Kyūden Kakita’s fall,” Yojiro replied. “Its loss is no doubt a
tragedy for your clan, but we have heard that its inhabitants have been taken for ransom, not killed
in cold blood.”
Could it be that the Kachiko of Otosan Uchi was really her body-double? It was a crucial
tool in Kachiko’s bag of tricks, but she’d never heard of Kachiko deploying her double while so far
away. The further apart the two women were, the higher the chances of discovery. It was a
potentially explosive secret, one that could irreparably harm the reputation of the Imperial Advisor
and every promise, or threat, she had ever made. If one couldn’t know if one was dealing with the
real Kachiko or just her double...
“That is true—for now. But my mistress, the Doji daimyō and Crane Clan Champion, fears
that Matsu Tsuko may be just as rash as her late betrothed.”
Hotaru began the cadence of moves they’d both mastered over the years of knowing each
other, the secret language that didn’t require words, only the slightest of gestures. Subtly upraise the
chin for yes, lower the gaze for no. Different ways of resting the hands, the way the fingers were
spaced or moved, could signify different words or individuals. With a few variances to avoid anyone
picking up their coded movements, the gestures had allowed them to send secret messages to one
another even when they were speaking in the public eye of court.
“We shall see,” Yojiro responded, conceding nothing.
While the focus of the room was on Itsuyo, Hotaru shifted her left palm from a fist to a face-
down open hand, and then back to an attentive fist. If anyone had even noticed, it would have looked

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as though she’d only needed to flex a troublesome wrist. The face-down left hand meant Hotaru.
It’s me.
Itsuyo wouldn’t give up so easily. “Steward Kakita Sukenobu still makes the castle his
residence, as do a squad of the Daidoji Iron Warriors. I hope that you have found them valuable in
bolstering the forces of the Imperial Legion.”
The figure in the armor replied with a slight tilt of her head, which stood for Kachiko. I know.
Yojiro continued, oblivious to their clandestine correspondence. “They have availed
themselves to us, as would any honorable samurai, but we have not needed to lean on them for
support thus far.”
Why are you here? Hotaru asked wordlessly.
“As you said before, dark clouds gather, and the need for allies has never been greater. I am
here before you now to offer a pledge of friendship and support. Allow the army of Daidoji Netsu
and my own to reinforce your defenses against what we believe will be another spate of Lion
aggression before winter comes to Toshi Ranbo. My honored father, Shiba Katsuda of Nikesake
City, has also arrived with his forces from the northwest to ensure that peace prevails.”
Kachiko’s right arm shivered, as if the bushi had felt a chill. That was the sign for Kachiko’s
husband, Shoju.
“I appreciate your offer, but the Emperor’s magistrates have no quarrel with the Lion.”
Yojiro snapped his fan closed for emphasis. “The Lion would dishonor themselves if they tried to
take the castle now that it’s been brought under the Hantei’s protection.”
And Yojiro? Hotaru pressed.
“Yet with no Hantei sitting the throne, is it possible the Lion will no longer see matters in
that light?” Itsuyo cautioned.
Kachiko waited for Yojiro to begin speaking before she made her left hand into a fist and
delicately pounded it in her right palm twice. Working for Shoju.
“I’m certain the Lion know on whose behalf Regent Shoju serves.”
Hotaru timed her reply with Itsuyo’s. And are you working for Shoju?
“Already the Lion test the Regent to see how much bloodshed he will permit without an
official edict of war. If they are not condemned soon, they will hunger for more conquests. And
where the Lion are granted leeway, others may sense their own opportunities.” Itsuyo paused.
Kachiko made to reply, but hesitated.

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 Itsuyo made the threat explicit. “They may very well set their eyes on reclaiming Toshi
Ranbo once and for all.”
Do you need my help? Hotaru signed.
Kachiko remained still. Hotaru tried the same question again, to no avail.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
“Again, I thank you for your consideration, Tsume-dono, but I must also consider the
alternative. Is it not possible that the addition of Crane troops would significantly aggravate the
Lion, and invite them to attack when they had previously turned their attention elsewhere?”
Yojiro’s counter was a strong one. Itsuyo tried to collect her thoughts in an attempt to rebuff
his argument, but the pause grew into an uncomfortable silence.
Tsume Itsuyo had been trained to spar with weapons, not with words. Even with Hotaru’s
preparation, the young lord did not know enough about her current sparring partner to seize upon
his strengths and weaknesses, his desires and fears, as a Doji courtier would. This was partially why
Hotaru had insisted on coming.
Yet, Kachiko complicated things, as ever. It would look terrible to the other lords of the
Crane for it to appear as though Hotaru had diverted her forces to save Kachiko, but in this moment,
Kachiko could be the very key to forcing Yojiro’s hand and avoiding bloodshed.
The bruises and cuts that Kakita Toshimoko had inflicted on her last night throbbed. He was
waiting for them in the castle town, pretending to be a nameless sell-sword unless the worst
happened and their retinue needing rescuing. He’d taught her not to allow others to dictate her
actions. She’d learned the hard way to stop caring about what her father thought, to stop caring
whether he approved or disapproved. She had come here with sincere and honorable intentions—to
lead the Crane back to victory, and that would have to be enough.
Time to play for keeps.
She reached for the sword placed to her right side—the side of peace—and got to her feet.
She untied the ribbon under her chin and pulled off the jingasa, allowing her long white hair to flow
free. The entire room reacted at once, the bushi shifting into tightly coiled stances, ready to protect
their masters.
“I am Doji Hotaru, Daimyō of the Doji family and Champion of the Crane Clan,” she calmly
proclaimed, with all the grace Lady Doji had passed on to her descendants. Strengthened by the
certainty of one’s own cause, there was no need to shout or intimidate.

710
 “Chief Magistrate Bayushi Yojiro, I charge you with imprisoning the Imperial Advisor,
Bayushi Kachiko, against her will. I declare you a traitor to the Emperor and unfit to hold this castle
in his name. I challenge you to a duel.”
She presented her sword to reveal a golden crane on the plain-black tsuba and the glowing-
gold habaki of Shukujo, the Ancestral Sword of the Crane, the weapon of Lady Doji’s heir.

He’d played right into Lady Kachiko’s hands, and now those hands were at his throat.
As her status far exceeded his own, Bayushi Yojiro could not contradict Doji Hotaru’s charge
without accepting her duel. Accepting the duel meant he or another would soon be gravely injured
or dead—there was no way he could face a duelist trained by the Grey Crane and survive. Nor were
there many in the castle who could oppose her without incurring a significant risk to their own lives.
Breathe, he reminded himself. But he had only seconds to compose a response.
If Kachiko could recognize Hotaru in disguise, it made sense that the opposite was also true.
Once upon a time, I got to know her very well... His mind raced back to when he’d seen them both
in court. Never had they been directly at each other’s throats, despite the rivalries between their
clans. He’d seen the fierceness now burning in Hotaru’s eyes before—it was the same look he’d
seen in Aoi when she’d been defending her lover, Takao.
Was Kachiko playing Hotaru as well, or...
His heart pounded faster.
If I reveal the truth—that Kachiko is here—I will betray Shoju. If I deny Kachiko’s identity,
I face almost certain death at Hotaru’s hands.
But my duty is to the Scorpion, and Shoju is my champion.
The Imperial Legionnaires looked to him now, to see what he would do—and whether he
would order them to kill a clan champion.
Slowly, he rose to his feet, his heart pounding in his ears.
“Champion Doji, they call me the Honest Scorpion. Believe me when I tell you that I am not
holding Bayushi Kachiko here against her will.”
It wasn’t a lie. It was Shoju who ordered her here, not Yojiro. He’d sent Kachiko here to
keep her out of danger, out of trouble. Kachiko had obeyed.
Even if Hotaru killed him and took the city, Kachiko could still remain here, away from the
capital. He could believe that Hotaru wouldn’t let any harm come to her.

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 “My challenge stands,” Hotaru declared.
“So be it.”
Now his duty to the Scorpion meant his death, as he knew it one day would. Yojiro reached
for his katana as Hotaru prepared to fully unsheathe her own.
“Wait!”

The gathered samurai turned to stare at the source of the voice. With a small amount of trouble, the
slight figure lifted the samurai helmet over her head and held it to one side. The mask she’d worn
beneath the mempō was sheer, with only a hint of fabric tracing her eyes and cheeks. There was no
mistaking the identity—or the beauty—of the woman before them.
Bayushi Kachiko parted her delicate lips to speak. “Chief Magistrate Yojiro is telling you
the truth; I am not here against my will—he was charged with my safekeeping. Doji-dono, you need
not fight him.”
Hotaru searched Kachiko’s eyes for treachery, but found none.
Kachiko took a few steps forward to address them both. “Chief Magistrate, will you permit
the Crane Clan forces to reinforce those of the Imperial Legion’s and winter here at Toshi Ranbo,
as they have requested? Will you recognize Champion Doji Hotaru as the commander of those
troops?”
Yojiro exchanged a look with Kachiko before he turned to face Hotaru once again.
“Doji-sama,” Kachiko went on, “will you accept the Chief Magistrate’s authority here as the
Emperor’s chief enforcer?”
The room held its breath.
Hotaru looked to Yojiro, and then to Kachiko. She knew what those eyes said: Please,
Hotaru.
“I will accept it,” Hotaru agreed, feeding her sword back into its sheath.
Yojiro breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Very well.”
It wasn’t as great a victory as she had hoped, but she’d still managed to strengthen the
Crane’s position and regain Toshi Ranbo without losing a single soul. She should have trusted in
Lady Doji that civility and peace could still prevail even in these tumultuous times. Forgive me,
Doji-no-Kami.

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 “I am glad that no blood need be shed by any of the Emperor’s servants,” Hotaru said,
addressing the room.
Yojiro nodded, adding, “And I believe all of the Emperor’s servants gathered here
understand the importance of keeping the Imperial Advisor safe—by keeping her presence here a
secret.”
“I would not want to contemplate the fate of any who failed in that duty.” Kachiko’s threat
was as sharp as the edges of the maedate helmet crest she caressed with excruciating care.

Late that night, Hotaru was putting the finishing touches on her letter to Doji Shizue when the sound
of silks sweeping against the floor alerted her to Kachiko’s presence, never mind the Crane Clan
guards that were posted in the hallway. Hotaru turned to see Kachiko sliding a trap door in the wall
panel closed, her figure illuminated only by the soft candlelight.
“I am glad to see you’ve made yourself familiar with the escape routes hidden in the castle,”
Hotaru said dryly.
“Mistress, is everything all right?” came a voice from beyond the screen.
“Yes, all is well. Please leave us,” Hotaru called back. There was a moment’s hesitation, but
the silhouettes disappeared from outside her chambers.
“I’ll be sure to post a guard in the secret passageway next time to provide you with more of
a challenge.”
“Do you really not want me to be able to visit you when I please?” Kachiko’s words were
meant to tease, but there was sadness there. Even a hint of desperation.
Hotaru didn’t reply; she only held out her hand, which Kachiko took, before drawing her in
for an embrace.
She felt something within Kachiko break, and the tight reins that the Bayushi-trained courtier
kept on her emotions snapped as she sobbed into Hotaru’s chest. Hotaru held her close, stroking her
long black hair to comfort her, as though she could somehow hold on to this moment for eternity if
she held Kachiko tightly enough.
For a moment, it was only the two of them. No obligations, no battlefields or politics. She
knew it was not to last.
“Hotaru,” Kachiko cried softly.

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 She’d never seen Kachiko like this: out of control, truly afraid. Even when Hotaru was still
a girl, meeting Kachiko for the first time at the Shosuro palace, Kachiko had always been more
savvy, more confident. Back then, Hotaru wished she could have been more like Kachiko. That was
before she realized the Scorpion woman was even less free than she was.
“I’ve never felt so alone as I have these last few weeks. But seeing you, it...” Kachiko took
a deep breath, regaining her voice. “It feels as though there is now light rekindled where only
darkness lay.”
Hotaru lifted Kachiko’s mask and wiped the tears from her face.
“Tell me what is wrong,” Hotaru whispered.
In hushed tones, Kachiko explained that she had been sent to Toshi Ranbo, that only a scant
few knew of her presence. She’d been completely isolated, with only an hour or so of company a
day.
“I didn’t dare write you,” Kachiko murmured. “It was too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
Kachiko stayed quiet. She was still holding back, not ready to face whatever it was that was
aching inside her.
Hotaru kept on holding her, and the sobs slowly began to subside. “And yet, for me to find
you again...”
They’d discussed the possibility before, but they weren’t quite willing to believe it. Shinsei
once taught that two souls could be tied together—their destinies linked—and that even when the
folly of humankind drove them apart, they would find a way back to each other. “I would fight by
your side...”
Kachiko slowly regained her composure. “I fear we have been reunited only in the most
terrible of circumstances.”
Hotaru recounted the calamities that had befallen Rokugan in only a matter of weeks. “The
death of the Emperor. The edict. The Regency. The missing Crown Prince...” So much had gone
wrong. How much of it bore Kachiko’s fingerprints?
“Our clans can’t be fighting now, when everything is falling apart. But also, the Scorpion
need your help, Hotaru.” The next words she spoke in a barely audible whisper. “I have done
something terrible.”
Hotaru’s heart stopped. For Kachiko herself to admit that what she had done was terrible...

714
 Kachiko withdrew from her, then reached for a calligraphy brush. Hotaru watched as she
committed her crimes to paper—crimes that were too terrible to speak aloud.

I have destroyed her trust in me, Kachiko thought, watching Hotaru read the contents for a second
time. Hotaru could keep these documents, if she wanted, and use them as damning evidence in a
courtroom where Kachiko could be condemned to a fate worse than death.
This is it. She will abandon me, and I will be left alone again.
“Is this all of it?” Hotaru finally asked.
“Yes,” Kachiko confirmed. “I swear it.” Sotorii’s regicide, the cover-up, Aramoro’s
assignment against Toturi. What she had—and had not—admitted to Shoju. She’d left nothing out
in her confession to Hotaru.
“They didn’t find the Emerald Champion’s body.” There was a tinge of hope in Hotaru’s
voice, as though it meant Toturi could still be alive.
“They wouldn’t, if it was done correctly.” Kachiko said as quietly as she could. It was no
consolation.
“Toturi was my friend.” Hotaru’s anger was rising. “He didn’t deserve this.”
No, he didn’t. Kachiko had wanted power to make up for the power that had been denied to
her when she was passed over for the title of Shosuro lord. More than that, she had wanted to deny
power to others. She’d told herself she was trying to do what was best in a given situation, but she’d
allowed her own ambition to blind her, allowed herself to believe that what was good for her was
good for the Scorpion Clan—and for the Empire.
“I’m so sorry. Truly, I...”
Kachiko inched closer to Hotaru. Shoju was right. I wanted power, but it was all built on
lies. In the end, it all melted away like snow.
“Hotaru. Years ago, at the Keep of White Sails, you showed me the need for allies you can
trust. I’m finally starting to learn that lesson.
“Sometimes, when the script demands it, I must be willing to play the villain, but I cannot
see everyone as my enemy anymore. I cannot continue like this, trying to puppeteer everything and
everyone around me. It’s impossible.”
The kuroko stagehands knew they could not control the actors on the Kabuki stage. That
didn’t mean they weren’t influential on the final performance, or that they were any less essential.

715
 Kachiko reached out to touch Hotaru gently on the shoulder.
“I can be your ally, Hotaru, if you’ll let me.”
Hotaru looked down at the papers she was holding. Her hands trembled. But one by one, she
fed the papers to the candle’s flame, until all evidence of Kachiko’s sins had turned to ash.
“I believe you, Kachiko. And you’ll help me set this right.”

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“I plead on behalf of my clan that the Throne intervene in the Lion’s ruthless invasion of our lands,”
Ide Tadaji begged, his petition bloated with melodrama despite the seriousness of his rugged face.
“Their raids have turned into savage butchery. The Lion slay peasants, which threatens the harvests.
They steal crops reserved for the Imperial tax. They break the laws of Heaven with their
warmongering.”
“How dare you twist the truth before the sacred Throne of Heaven?” Ikoma Ujiaki barked,
his beard bristling and the Lion mon on his chest puffing out as he stepped forward. “The Unicorn
do us grave insult by pretending that they themselves have not acted in violence along our shared
border. They have committed their share of atrocities. They are the ones who make war and relish
in it. It was they who first betrayed the trust between our clans by breaking the marriage alliance
between Shinjo Altansarnai and our Ikoma Anakazu, a union blessed by our late Emperor himself.
As the Right Hand of the Emperor, we Lion only seek to enforce the Imperial law as our honored
legacy.”
Tadaji’s lips puckered, Ujiaki’s words twisting his meekness into anger. Yet he did not raise
his voice to meet the Lion’s timbre.
“My Lord Ikoma. You speak out of turn,” he said. “And beyond the truth. Shall I summon
your accountants to tell us all how many farmers you slew? How many koku you stole?”
“Lies,” Ujiaki could not help but hiss before settling back into the decorum of the Imperial
audience, but the whole court shifted uneasily in the throne room. The late Emperor had not made
any moves to quell the illegal skirmishes between Lion and Unicorn, so all ears strained to know
what the Imperial Regent would do. Sitting upon the Emerald Throne, Bayushi Shoju stirred not a

717
thread as the Unicorn representative continued, Shoju’s fierce crimson mempō hiding every hint of
his thoughts.
Kakita Yoshi knew his next move. Like any Kakita born while the gates of Kyūden Kakita
were closed, he was cursed to never wield a katana. Yet this had never quelled the warrior spirit
within him.
The court was his battlefield. Today, Shoju was his opponent. The Imperial Chancellor
watched the Scorpion, the yearning sinews of his heart eager like a bowstring behind a nocked
arrow.
All the pieces of my plan are falling into place. I have outmatched you this time, Shoju. You
will stride headlong into my snare, and I just wait for the right time to strike.
Tadaji ended his appeal with a deep bow on the floor, his forehead pressed against the mirror-
finished wood. The pitiful display stirred anger, frustration, and compassion throughout the
assembly. Nearly silent mutterings behind sleeves and shared stolen glances rippled through room.
The Imperial Regent lifted a finger for silence, and the room begrudgingly obeyed.
“Ide Tadaji, you do the Unicorn great honor by presenting this appeal before the Throne,”
Shoju acknowledged. The Scorpion knew his way well around a politically neutral answer. But that
would not save him, no matter his sincerity. “However, on behalf of Heaven, under whose blessing
I act as Regent, I must deny your request, though not without compassion. Currently, acting Emerald
Champion Agasha Sumiko and the Imperial Legion cannot spare the troops, as they are spread
across the Empire investigating the disappearances of Akodo Toturi and Prince Daisetsu, which
takes priority before all other undertakings. I must instruct that the Lion and Unicorn resolve this
conflict on their own, as befitting the responsibilities of their esteemed representatives.”
Tadaji maintained a stolid blankness in his face, despite the baiting assertion. The whole
court suspected Unicorn involvement in Hantei Daisetsu’s disappearance, since he was last seen in
the palace in the company of the young meishōdō soreress Iuchi Shahai. Embarrassment would end
the petition from the Unicorn, though Bayushi Shoju’s carefully worded response avoided an
outright accusation. The Regent could not risk offending a Great Clan, not when everyone still
suspected the Scorpion of stealing the throne or involvement in Toturi’s disappearance. And the
Unicorn representative, to his credit, showed no offense.
As expected, Tadaji got to his feet, bowing once more, and retreated from his place on the
floor, relinquishing his speaking place before the throne.

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 Yoshi tilted his head to glance at the brooding band of Phoenix courtiers, who whispered
among themselves as Tadaji passed them. Only Yoshi knew they would speak next.
“My Lord Shoju,” Asako Togama said, stepping forward and bowing. A series of whispered
gasps echoed through the chamber.
The old Asako family daimyō, dressed in solemn robes, stood resolute before the Regent,
his retinue of courtiers behind him. The Phoenix, a clan full of pacifists, often interceded in matters
of violence. However, they had thus far been silent regarding the Lion and Unicorn skirmishes,
neither side having received the Imperial mandate to declare war. Yoshi had hoped Shoju would not
have foreseen a Phoenix intervention, despite all his political prowess.
Though Shoju’s mempō showed nothing, Yoshi imagined a scowl. He almost smiled.
You lose your balance, Shoju.
“We of the Phoenix request that you reconsider your decision with regard to the Unicorn and
the Lion,” Togama continued, his voice calm though his eyes narrowed with reproach. “We do not
wish to offend the heavenly decree that establishes your leadership on behalf of the Hantei until
Prince Daisetsu’s ascension to the throne, but we, as scholars of the celestial ways and speakers for
the elements, must remind you to do your duty. As Regent, above all, you must accomplish the
celestial will of maintaining peace and harmony among the people of Rokugan. This is the most
sacred of the duties of the Throne, and it cannot be ignored.”
Yoshi’s trap had sprung.
Murmurs shuddered through the court at the unexpected boldness of the Phoenix. Even
Ujiaki’s usual smugness had melted into disbelief. Yoshi turned his eyes on Doji Fumiki at his side,
giving her a nod.
Your turn.
With the swiftness of a sword stroke, Fumiki strode forward to stand beside Togama,
conviction gleaming behind her eyes. “On behalf of the Crane, I agree with the judgment of the wise
Asako-dono. Lord Shoju, we of the Crane also humbly ask that you reconsider. You know that our
own clan suffers alongside the Unicorn and the Lion from the present conflicts.”
“On behalf of all those suffering under Heaven,” Yoshi said, raising his voice at Shoju,
drawing power from the wave of dissatisfied grimaces and suspicious glances that swelled behind
him, all directed at the Scorpion Regent. Shoju could not stand against such a strike. “We ask that
you do your duty to maintain the peace lest you lose the sanction of Heaven.”

719
 A muffled chaos exploded behind the sleeves and fans of all in attendance. Yoshi’s blow
had struck deep. Despite the Imperial decree, despite Sumiko’s support, Shoju was losing his grip
on the Throne. The Scorpion would fall. Yoshi imagined a frown deepening into the darkest glower
on Shoju’s face behind the mempō.
Out of habit, Yoshi flicked his eyes to his political rival, Bayushi Kachiko, who sat on the
dais beside her husband in the seat of the Imperial Advisor. Yoshi was eager to see the angry fire
that would blaze in her own eyes at the upset of sentiments against her clan. But Kachiko had turned
away from the room, as if hiding an overflow of emotions.
Both Lord and Lady Scorpion bleed from my cut.
Shoju lifted his hand, earning an imperfect and resentful silence.
“My decision stands,” he said, his voice betraying nothing of his unease. “I dismiss the
court.”
With that, the audience ended, but as soon as Shoju and Kachiko withdrew from the throne
room, the courtiers unleashed their impatient chatter. The Regent had lost face. Ujiaki jeered to his
fellow Lion, growling every word of satisfaction for anyone nearby to hear. Tadaji and the other
Unicorn approached and bowed to Togama, who shook his head in humility. Yoshi and Fumiki had
their own admirers among the other Phoenix and a few Unicorn, who moved forward to congratulate
the Crane on their bold action. The Scorpion courtiers—and many of the Dragon—had retreated
from the throne room almost as fast as Shoju.
Yoshi wanted to ignore it all, out of decorum... but pride stirred within him. He turned away
from the other courtiers, his chin lifting slightly. Their existence faded from his notice.
This was my victory. More will come. You will not keep the throne you stole, Shoju. I will
not let you.
Fumiki rejoined him as he exited the throne room.
“Kakita-sama,” she said, the flush of the audience’s events still pink on her cheeks. “Your
political maneuvers today were executed flawlessly. Your brilliant cooperation with the Phoenix
has garnered honor and distinction for the Crane. I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to
work with and learn from you.”
“No, it is I who must thank you, Fumiki-san, for treating so successfully with the Phoenix
last week. I was worried that they would not have the courage to stand for Heaven’s will, but you

720
did well in reminding them of their duty. Together, we have created one more obstacle for the
Scorpion to stumble upon. With enough of them, they shall be rendered powerless.”
Fumiki smiled. “I owe it to your guidance, Kakita-sama. Though, I wonder if we wander too
far down the path of the Scorpion in this.”
Yoshi smiled back. He had used her, and she knew it. Fumiki’s reputation as the most
virtuous of courtiers had helped him swing the favor of the court toward the “Phoenix” concern he
had devised. Her meeting with Togama had been only one of dozens of meetings he had arranged
between the Great Clans in unusual times and places, stretching the army of Scorpion spies too thin
to catch him. And he would organize dozens more to throw them off the scent of his next move. She
worried about the morality of the manipulation.
“Oh?” he asked, feigning ignorance. Fumiki reddened.
“I heard the rumors,” she started slowly, her white-haired head lowered in humility. “The
most untrue whispers about Shoju-sama. About Toturi’s disappearance, about a quarrel between the
princes...”
She trailed off, unwilling to outright accuse Yoshi of gossip mongering.
“I work to keep the Scorpion’s eyes and ears occupied,” Yoshi said calmly, cutting off her
worry about angering him. “They have controlled and manipulated the court long enough.”
“But purposefully manipulating them in return. Is that...” Fumiki paused again.
“Righteous?” he asked, willing himself to keep the mockery and frustration out of his speech.
He was angry with Shoju, not this little Crane girl who presented herself as the moral superior of
everyone at court. She would learn soon enough what it took to fight against the Scorpion.
“No,” she finally answered. “Is that wise? If Shoju-sama truly does wield full Imperial
authority, is toppling his power in the absence of the Hantei a wise decision? Would that not cause
greater unrest in Rokugan? More war? More chaos?”
Yoshi’s face hardened. “Fumiki-san, as Imperial Chancellor, I obeyed the late Emperor
Hantei the thirty-eighth with every motion of my body and every desire of my heart. I honor that
vow of allegiance beyond his death, dedicating it to his heir. Right now, the Throne’s power is frail,
as the Fortunes have seen fit to take our beloved Emperor and disinherit his firstborn heir on the
same day, so everything I do is to protect their sacred office from those who would usurp it during
this time of weakness. I will do this and more if it means checking Scorpion power. Inside and
outside of court.”

721
 Humility glimmered in Fumiki’s eyes. She bowed to him. “Forgive me, Kakita-sama. I did
not mean to question your sense of duty. It seems I have yet much to learn from you about courage,
and I will strive to do better. Please, count me as your ally. Call upon me if you have need of me
again.”
Yoshi nodded, and Doji Fumiki disappeared toward her own chambers, her head held high.
Turning to look out the nearby window upon the palace garden, Kakita Yoshi spotted the green-
sashed servants he had personally placed among the ladies-in-waiting. They followed a few paces
behind Lady Kachiko, who had retreated from the court assembly into the garden. She circled
beneath a bare plum tree, heading toward the koi pond. She had been spending more and more time
outside, despite the autumn frost gathering thicker on the ground every day.
Why so much solitude, Kachiko, when you so thrive among your victims?
He ordered a nearby Crane attendant to bring him a thicker robe from his quarters. He would
join her to find out.

Yogo Asami’s sandals crunched along the frozen pebbles of the garden trail, barely yielding beneath
her footfalls. Soon the snow would come. Soon she could not wander outside lest she risk a chill.
Lady Kachiko never got sick, and she, Asami, must likewise never do so. But she could not bear to
be inside. The palace had grown stifling, and the feverish passions raised during the Imperial
assembly had nearly forced her to flee. She was not the political mastermind her lady was.
She knew how to behave at court. She knew what to say, when to say it, and how. However,
her duty was not to be a courtier, even if she was a good one. Her duty was to be Kachiko. An
exactly mirrored image. Without Kachiko’s daily companionship to guide her mannerisms and
intonations, her vigilant mask was slipping.
The remembrance of her failure during the otsukimi poetry reading flicked in her mind like
the sting of a bamboo switch. She had accidentally shown Akodo Kaede a look of pity. That look
had betrayed her knowledge of Toturi’s demise, and the shugenja had run to her husband, perhaps
to share Toturi’s fate. A grievous mistake.
Asami paused on the path, mere steps away from the pond. It had not yet iced over, and she
could see the motionless crimson and gold koi, balanced in their torpor beneath the water. They
were not dead, yet they would remain lifeless until spring, not eating, not breathing. Simply waiting

722
for spring. She felt her shoulders droop, a gesture she had thought Lady Kachiko had trained out of
her long ago.
Forgive me, my lady. I fail you. I have ceased to move, like these pathetic fish.
A light step behind her on the path drew her attention from the pond. Kakita Yoshi parted
the small retinue of her attendants as he approached. Kachiko’s greatest rival at court.
“The Lord Chancellor is a proud one,” Kachiko had told her. “So proud that he never gives
up. He uses all my opportunities to embarrass him at court to hone his skills. Beware of Yoshi. Never
face him alone.”
Asami straightened her posture.
“Lady Kachiko, please forgive my intrusion into your musings,” Yoshi said, his usually stern
voice softened in a friendly salutation. “It seems we both meant to enjoy the sunshine by strolling
in the garden one last time before winter.”
He wanted something, yet she could not risk staying with him long enough to find out what
it was.
“You do me great honor by accompanying me, Kakita-dono,” she said, slightly nodding her
head at him, as Kachiko would have done. “Though perhaps it is growing too cold. Surely, the
temperate southern coasts of the Crane lands do not prepare you for the chill of these wintry months
in the capital.”
He chuckled. Uncharacteristically. Yoshi was never jovial with Kachiko. If anything, he was
always stern. Always on edge. Always looking for a way to strike back at her. Asami did not like
his laugh. Nor the smile that accompanied it.
“You are somewhat right, Lady Kachiko. Some of us Crane find the cold uncomfortable.
Like our dear friend Lady Hotaru, for instance, from whom you probably derive this observation.
She cannot abide the cold at all.” He looked down into the pond, seeing the slumbering koi. “But I
am not like her. You see, just as our namesake, we differ. Some wild cranes migrate to the southern
lands during winter. They cannot give up the ease of flying in warm winds and fishing in warm
waters. However, some brave the winter, knowing that the sleeping fish are easy prey.”
Asami felt her throat tighten. She willed it to ease, drawing her cheeks and unsteady lips in
with Kachiko’s wily smile. “I see. I had not known that, Yoshi-dono.”
“It is my pleasure to enlighten your understanding of the Crane.” A spark of delight lit in his
eyes.

723
 Asami paused. She had let him win a point against Kachiko. Her lady would not have let his
pride go unchecked. A mistake. “Yes, your explanation was an apt one, though perhaps the analogy
is a little barbaric.”
“I disagree. There is no barbarism in the hunt. Animals must feed themselves, after all.”
“Perhaps not. But I think Lady Hotaru’s habits betray some cultured truth. There is grace
and skill in the live hunt that those who chase motionless quarry do not have. The difference,
perhaps, between a crane and a buzzard.”
Yoshi’s mouth did not harden in frustration as she expected.
“You always take Hotaru-sama’s side against me,” he said, grinning. “Perhaps you harbor a
soft spot for her.”
“You are mistaken,” Asami began, but her mind went blank. She had not meant to betray
Kachiko’s weakness for Doji Hotaru. She almost cursed the Fortunes for her ill luck. Yoshi had set
a trap by mentioning Hotaru, and she had fallen right in.
“I think not,” he said. His voice grew sharper with an impatient eagerness. “But perhaps this
affection for Hotaru-sama is only one of many distractions that have preoccupied your mind lately,
Lady Kachiko. I worry about you. You have not been acting like yourself.”
“Not like myself?” she repeated. A flash of fear jolted down her spine.
Does he know?
“You’ve grown, dare I say, sentimental?” He seemed to loom closer. Absently, Asami turned
away despite willing herself to stand tall against him.
“Yes. Perhaps the court’s stresses have weighed on you?” he continued. “The death of our
dear friend the Emperor was a severe blow to us all, and surely a great one to the Imperial Advisor.
It certainly was to me as chancellor. The Imperial burden now rests on us all more heavily.
Especially with the suspicious absence of our Emerald Champion.”
“It has been difficult, but Shoju-sama’s leadership strengthens us all,” Asami stammered.
She could not regain the calm of her composure. It was as if she played a game of Go on a board
she could not see, one whose grid stretched endlessly. She did not know where to take her next
move. And more and more confidently, Yoshi set down his stones.
“Perhaps, but surely, you have heard the reason that Shoju-sama has dedicated so much
effort to investigating Toturi’s disappearance. Champion Sumiko and Captain Ishikawa believe that
assassins were involved. Perhaps even shinobi.”

724
 Asami’s breath vanished.
Aramoro.
“You look unwell, Kachiko-san.” Yoshi’s voice feigned concern, but his eyes revealed a
hunter’s keenness. “I can see why you might be afraid at this news. Shinobi are no mere legend to
balk at. Your yōjimbō has not been seen at court for several days. You must send for him at once,
especially if there are shinobi lurking about Otosan Uchi.”
“He has been busy with other duties that the Regent has given him.”
“What is more important than guarding the Imperial Advisor in this time of danger?” Yoshi
insisted. “Do not tell me he prizes the esteem of his brother higher than his duty to protect you, Lady
Kachiko. He cannot shirk his duty—”
“—No. Aramoro is a dutiful servant to the Throne.”
“As dutiful as Akodo Toturi, I see. Conveniently absent in a grave hour of need.”
“Do not question his loyalty,” Asami cried, her words breathy, heavy with threatening tears.
She clamped her lips shut. Without knowing it, she had let herself loose. She had not used
Kachiko’s voice to communicate Kachiko’s views. Kachiko would never have cared if Yoshi had
disparaged Aramoro. No, in that moment, Asami had been herself, Aramoro’s wife, fighting for the
honor of her husband.
Yoshi said nothing. He turned and dismissed his and her attendants who edged along the far
side of pond, endeavoring to hear their words. Asami nearly bolted after them, but she could not.
Yoshi did not even need to block her way, though he did. She was frozen, like the little fish floating
below them.
He knows the truth.

Yoshi towered over the woman who was not Bayushi Kachiko as she shrank into herself. He did not
know who she was, but the fact that she was an imposter was undeniable. She had revealed herself.
This woman did not have Kachiko’s confidence, her poise, her power. She was afraid, incapable,
and sloppy. Where Kachiko was heartless, this woman was tender. He would need to find out who
she was.
Perhaps Hotaru knows who this body double is. She has spoken more with Kachiko than has
anyone else in the clan. But where is Kachiko?

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 This woman’s courtly graces had been sufficient to fool the court ever since the Scorpion
Champion had taken up the regency, but Yoshi’s cunning far outmatched hers. Aramoro’s absence
was curious, however... did it mean he was with the real Kachiko, wherever she was?
He looked down at the near perfect image of his rival. This woman indeed looked the part,
without illusion or concealing makeup. She wore Kachiko’s clothes and accoutrements, her mask,
her perfumes. She was an exacting likeness. But this woman had broken under his accusations of
Aramoro. She was obviously in love with him. And afraid for him.
Afraid when I mentioned him in connection to Toturi’s absence.
Yoshi smiled. As Imperial Chancellor, Yoshi had been privy to the details of Akodo Toturi’s
investigation with Seppun Ishikawa. With her heart’s weakness, this woman had revealed that
Aramoro’s absence coincided with that of Toturi. Aramoro must have been Toturi’s assassin.
A Scorpion assassination plot.
“Forgive me, Kakita-dono,” the woman mumbled. “The cold has made me lose myself for a
moment. I will follow my attendants inside.”
Two red spots still flecked her cheeks to show an embarrassment that Kachiko never would
have revealed, yet this woman had straightened her neck into a proud, lofty carriage that mimicked
that of her mistress. Whoever she was, she would maintain her guise to the end.
“Of course, Lady Kachiko. Wintry winds stir even the stillest of waters,” he replied, his eyes
following her as she took anxious steps back along the frozen garden path, away from the pond.
A moving reflection in the water drew his gaze. A pair of winter cranes flew overhead,
eyeing the pond only momentarily before continuing on toward the marshy riverbanks north of
Otosan Uchi. He watched them vanish behind the palace’s gold and green roof. A good omen for
victories that day: one against Shoju in court, one against Kachiko’s decoy in private. He would not
stop until the Scorpion’s treason was stamped out for good.

726
727
Yasuki Oguri squinted at the water ahead, inexpertly shading his eyes against the rays of the
dawning sun creeping over the Kaiu Wall and across the deck of the Poison Tide. Around him, the
crew did their best to stifle nervous yawns, attending to the business of guiding the ship to its
destination as though it—and perhaps themselves as well—were made of glass. Oguri could hardly
blame them for being unsettled by their environment: though the waters of the River of the Last
Stand had been used to protect Rokugan from the invasion of the Shadowlands centuries before, it
wasn’t as comforting a thought when one could simply glance to the west to see that dreaded land
just beyond the banks. And from what he noticed, the glances of those around him were frequent,
especially this early in the morning.
Oguri sighed and scrubbed a hand across his eyes as if to wipe away the need for more sleep,
doing his best to stifle a yawn. He had been pushing his escort hard to reach the Watchtower of
Sun’s Shadow, speeding their exit from Friendly Traveler Village and up the river, holding gamely
on to a faint hope that the lack of communication from the outpost was merely an error and not an
indication of a far graver situation. The Mantis crew had grumbled at such haste, but at a glare from
their leader—the formidable shugenja known as Kudaka—they had quickly bitten their tongues and
fallen in line. And tensions had grown tighter and tighter as they progressed further from the coast,
nerves stretching like bowstrings. Oguri hoped they would reach their destination before any strings
snapped.
His gaze drifted to the sides of the ship, where Kudaka’s two protégés, Fuu and Umi, sat
opposite one another, staring over the gunwales, waving their hands slowly over the surface of the
water. His father had seen them on the Mantis champion’s flagship and had spoken of the twins

728
connecting effortlessly with the kami, their prayers to the spirits making the water around the ship
as smooth as glass. The trip here, however, seemed to have taxed them greatly: their already pale
skin stretched tight across their delicate features, their eyes cloudy with exhaustion, their struggles
evident to Oguri even from where he stood at the stern of the ship.
“You see it too, then?” Oguri did his best not to start at the sudden interjection and turned
his head to see Kudaka at his side. Though the woman had ceased using her connection with the
spirits of air to buoy her across the deck—which he felt had been gratuitous—she continued to move
with a stealthiness that a cat might envy. “Twins’ve been a bit sluggish lately.”
Oguri heard his father’s lessons in his head about diplomacy and gave his best attempt at a
casual smile. “Honestly, I barely noticed. I know everyone is a bit run-down and on edge. And
besides, we have been making pretty good time.”
Kudaka, ever unimpressed by tact, snorted loudly. “We’d be makin’ a lot better time if they
wasn’t havin’ so much trouble,” she said, covering the seriousness of her tone somewhat by idly
picking a bit of breakfast from a back tooth. “Said the kami weren’t listenin’ proper. Spooked, they
said.”
Oguri’s practiced veneer cracked and he frowned. “And what do you make of that?”
Kudaka turned and spit on the deck, her face sour. “I know the Shadowlands does some odd
tricks. But I ain’t never heard of kami being ‘spooked’ exactly. I’d call ‘em more reluctant, sure,
but...” Her frown deepened. “We don’t all have the same kind of askin’, if you catch my meaning.
I reach to them, they know my years, they know how familiar I am. Those two...” She shook her
head. “If I’m a waterwheel in a stream, they’re by a stinkin’ great waterfall. I can brush off the taint
of those dark lands and just feel a bit like I stepped in seal scat—but for them?” A pained look crept
into her eyes. “Must feel hard to breathe.”
Oguri opened his mouth to ask her for a bit more detail on what she meant, when a short
whistle sounded from the lookout at the bow of the Poison Tide. “Watchtower sighted,” he said and
clambered quickly down from the upper deck, rushing to the front of the ship to try and get a better
look. He strained his vision a moment, peering through the long shadows of dawn and trying to get
a proper measure of the place, before remembering a gift that the first mate had given to him when
they set off. He fumbled in a bag at his side, withdrew the brass tube, extended it, and put the
spyglass to his eye. Pleasant as the morning light could be, its golden rays skating across the area

729
and making the desolation nearby look almost lovely, it was proving a bit of a problem in trying to
look past and see what lay ahead.
Next to him, a Crab bushi scoffed and shook their head. “That’s not so bad. The walls look
secure. A proper Shadowlands assault would have pulled the whole place down and had oni
stomping on the rubble. Not a demon in sight!”
“Walls up are one thing,” another said, uncrossing her arms to point at the structure looming
in the distance. “The walls even have sentries, see? All this way for nothing.”
Oguri continued to fiddle with the spyglass, bringing it up and focusing on the walls,
something itching at his brain.
“Don’t say that,” the first bushi chuckled. “Maybe they have some saké to share. After all
this time on alert, I could certainly use some, couldn’t you?”
“You said it. Why don’t we—”
Suddenly, the image in the spyglass came into focus, and Oguri’s eyes widened in shock.
He whirled on Kudaka, who actually took a step backward in surprise. “Stop! We have to stop the
boat immediately!”
Without missing a beat, Kudaka nodded, then spun around and leveled a blast of wind at the
mainsail, which creaked with the sudden force of the gust, and made the whole ship shudder. “FULL
STOP!” she said loudly, but noticeably kept her voice below a yell. “Not one yard further or I’ll flog
you myself !”
A low chatter spilled around the deck like an upturned sack of acorns, rolling from group to
group. Oguri tried to put it out of his head and continued staring through the spyglass, the
brightening light making the view clearer. I’m right, he thought to himself. Damn it, I’m right.
“What’s the wait?” Kudaka said, leaning close to him to keep the conversation quiet. “Looks
clear to me.”
Oguri covered his startled jump at Kudaka’s closeness and handed her the spyglass, then
pointed toward the walls of the watchtower in the distance. “See the edge of those walls?” he said.
“Before I left Kyūden Hida, I studied the plans for every single watchtower built along the Wall,
and the regulations for how each of them is maintained. Every one of them is to have two ballistae
and two catapults in working order.”
Kudaka shrugged, still squinting through the glass. “And? I see ‘em right up there, on the
corners.”

730
 “That is the problem. They are supposed to be centered.”
Kudaka snorted. I’m getting a little tired of that snort, Oguri thought to himself briefly. “So
what’s the fuss? Fallen behind on them regulations, maybe?”
He shook his head emphatically. “I would have been less worried if they just were not there.
But that ballista up there is pointed diagonally. Which would not put them in ideal position for
anything coming across the river, but—”
“—anything comin’ up the river would be a perfect target.” Kudaka snapped the spyglass
shut and sucked her teeth. “Damn, good thing you had us stop. Kaiu ballistas would be rubbish on
a ship, like I said, but they’d sure punch a hole clear through one.” She jerked her chin at the figures
on the walls ahead. “What about them sentries, though?”
Oguri set his jaw. Though the figures wore Crab armor and stood at their posts as they
should, the spyglass showed him the truth of what they were...something that the slumped shoulders
and slight sway made apparent now, even at a distance. “They are not sentries—or at least not ours.
Those are undead.” The zombie soldiers weren’t the best at keeping watch, but they were plentiful
wherever the Taint spread, turning the defenders’ strength into fresh horrors. “This almost certainly
means there are more dangerous creatures inside the watchtower proper.” He swallowed, his voice
thick. “Maybe even Lost samurai.”
Kudaka eyed him, her expression measuring. “So what now, cormorant?”
Oguri gave a sharp sigh of frustration. “Don’t know exactly yet. Putting that together. We
cannot go any further along the river, that is for certain. Let’s try to moor as close to the shallows
here as we can and disembark the bulk of the forces. Zombies are far better at spotting bigger threats,
so we might be able to get a scout or two closer to the tower to get a feel for the situation.”
The Mantis woman nodded, and in short order the crew steered the ship into the shallows,
carefully dropping anchor before the boat became mired in the river’s silty bottom. To Oguri’s
dismay, Kudaka thought it wiser and more expedient not to lower the rowboats and simply set down
rope ladders, sending everyone—with the exception of Kudaka and her twin students, who floated
down from the deck to the land—wading through thigh-deep water and onto shore. Scouts were
dispatched as the expedition force wrung out their wet clothing, strapped on their armor, and
cautiously approached along the base of the Wall, positioning themselves as close to the watchtower
as they could without being spotted.

731
 Oguri was shifting uncomfortably in his cuirass when the scouts returned, the light of true
day turning the sky from pink to blue—I might have found the view lovely, if not for the
circumstances.
“Report,” he said quickly, waving away their bows.
“There is a breach in the wall, as expected,” the smaller one said grimly. “Northwest side.
About the size of six bushi shoulder-to-shoulder.”
“Or one oni,” the larger scout grumbled. “We could not pick up numbers, but the chattering
of bakemono was loud... until we heard a loud, deep voice tell them to shut up.”
Oguri stifled a wince. Goblins and ogres. Exactly what I was afraid of.
“Is there more?” he asked. Both scouts looked worried.
“My lord...” The smaller scout started, scratching behind an ear like a nervous tic. “We two
could approach unseen, but a larger force... rounding the distance from here to that breach would
leave us exposed, even at a full run. With their numbers and siege equipment, I estimate that they
could eliminate at least a third of our numbers before we even reached the watchtower.”
“Not to mention that breach is like the neck of a saké jug,” growled the bigger scout. “If we
do not punch through in a hurry, we will get trapped in there and cut to pieces.”
Oguri’s brow furrowed. “So we need a distraction. Something to draw the sentries down to
the courtyard and keep everything down there occupied long enough to let us run in, get through the
breach, and engage them.”
Kudaka gave a rough, bitter laugh, causing the scouts to level dark looks at her that she
absolutely ignored. “Too bad the watchtower didn’t get no warnin’ out before they got wrecked,”
she said wryly. “Could do with a few more troops now, I think.”
Oguri drew in a sharp breath as a thought came to him suddenly. “You’re right. You’re right!
They didn’t get out a signal.”
Kudaka, the twins, and the scouts all gave him peculiar looks, which he hardly noticed.
Oguri’s brain was already piecing things together, a mishmash of teachings from his father and Hida
Kisada that he hoped would do both his daimyō and his clan champion proud.
“The Watchtower of Sun’s Shadow was inspected very shortly before contact was lost with
them, and the report said that all their stores of goods and equipment were at capacity. If they did
not get a signal out, that means the whole stock of signal arrows is still untouched.”

732
 The scouts looked perplexed. “But my lord...” The smaller one scratched behind his ear
again. “Even if we used those, help could not possibly come in time to assist us in taking the
watchtower.”
Oguri shook his head. “We don’t need to fire them into the air to make them useful. Each
signal arrow is packed with a bright red powder... I can tell you firsthand it is a nightmare to deal
with. When I was a child, I snuck into the equipment room at Yasuki Yashiki to play with the
weapons. I accidentally broke one of the reeds holding the powder, and it went everywhere. Even
just one arrow had enough to coat almost everything in that room, myself very much included.” He
gave a sharp laugh at the memory. “I was seeing red in my vision for hours afterwards, and sneezing
big gobs of crimson snot. Terrified the courtiers that I was dying.”
The scouts continued to look confused. “My lord... what...”
Kudaka beat them to it, giving an echoing laugh and clapping her hands. “I think I get it,”
she chuckled. “Get them arrows, dump the dust in the courtyard, run in while it’s chaos. I like it.”
Her grin turned dark. “I’ll do it.”
Oguri suddenly blinked, startled. I... hadn’t really thought of the logistical implications of
that plan, he thought with alarm. “I... I didn't mean that you—”
Kudaka waved him off, and Oguri wondered if the breeze he felt on his face was part of that
action. “Don’t be daft. Of course it’s me. You know anyone else who could just hop up that wall
without causing a fuss, find a stock of arrows, and upend a mess of red dust all over everywhere?”
Fuu and Umi had a moment to look stung before Kudaka whirled on them.
“Stop sulkin’, you two. Your job is to keep that same dust away from the fightin’ force so
they can get to stabbin’ and smashin’, eh?” The twins looked mildly mollified.
Kudaka’s tone softened a little as she placed her hands on their shoulders. “You’re me
students, and the pride of the Mantis. You been doin’ fine this whole way, but today’s the day you
really gotta show what you can do, yeah?” She squeezed their shoulders affectionately. “Do our clan
proud. And me.”
The twins nodded solemnly, and Oguri could almost swear some color had come back into
their pale cheeks as Kudaka turned back to him. “Now, where are them dusty arrows?”
“The corner outposts, on top of the walls,” he said, pointing carefully. “Regulations state
that there needs to be a store of them at each one, but the main supply should be on the southeast

733
corner, furthest from the Kaiu Wall.” Kudaka nodded, and Oguri frowned. “I still don’t think you
should be doing this.”
“Try and stop me, cormorant,” the older woman laughed, standing and stretching. “It’s dyin’
here or on a deck, and either seems a fine way for me. Just look for my signal—it’ll involve a lot of
screaming!”
He opened his mouth to voice another useless protest as Kudaka took off running,
soundlessly as a shadow, making it to the base of the watchtower, then leaping up along the face of
the wall, bounding from one smooth brick to the next as a column of wind whistled beneath her. He
had a moment of fear as the undead sentry above her leaned down to look at what was rapidly scaling
the wall, and then there was a flash of silver in her hand—and a sweep of the kama in it—and the
head of the walking corpse fell off the neck of its owner and hit the ground with a distant soft thump.
Another airy leap, and the teal-robed figure was up over the side of the tower and out of sight.
“Wow,” whispered the scout next to him. Oguri found himself silently agreeing.
He turned to the warriors gathered around him. “Everyone, ready your weapons and be
prepared to run. Scouts, you are with me at the front. Sailors, you are behind us—remember to either
use blunt weapons or be wary of any blood spray. If your jade is at all stained, get back on the boat
right away—we do not have time to deal with anyone becoming afflicted by the Taint.” He
reflexively felt under the collar of his armor for his own protection, relieved at the feel of the jade
beads around his neck. “And Fuu and Umi—stay by my side, and do as Kudaka said: that dust is a
nightmare to deal with. I want it to be our foes’ nightmare, not ours.” The twins nodded, pale eyes
serious, and Oguri gripped his ararebō, grateful for its weight.
There was a sudden crash from the distance, the shriek of a gale-force wind, and immediately
after, a chorus of other shrieks, terrifying and inhuman as the bluster that preceded them. “Now!”
Oguri yelled, and he and his troops dashed forward at a full run, chunks of river dirt flying under
their feet. They turned the corner of the watchtower wall and scrambled through the rubble of the
breach to view the utter chaos within.
Red dust swirled like a tornado of crimson pollen, like a spirit possessed, blasting everything
within the walls. Undead soldiers lay like sacks of meat where the initial blast had thrown them,
bent over archery targets and pressed into walls, most crushed and limp but some still twitching.
Goblins clung to whatever surface they could grab a hold of, their claws digging in deep, while
others screamed as the winds buffeted them about. Even the pair of ogres, tall and horrifying, had

734
dropped their massive kanabō to scratch at their eyes, blinded by the crimson dust. The Crab and
Mantis forces yelled, and the gale suddenly stopped, dropping everything roughly to the ground.
There was a half-moment as the enemy forces blinked, confused at the interruption, before Fuu and
Umi unleashed twin blasts of wind at them, sending them staggering backwards in a wave of red.
Then it was more chaos and more red. Oguri found himself barely able to manage the panic
of battle, his conscious mind retreating as if to a safe distance, watching himself crush the skulls of
goblins and cave in the chests of undead—don’t think of them as people, they’re just empty shells—
with his club, hearing wild yelling all around him. An ogre suddenly loomed before him, and he
struck out without thinking, bashing it savagely in the leg, causing it to stagger to one knee. The hit
jarred his arms so much that Oguri himself stumbled and would have likely been crushed by the
twisted creature’s next strike if not for the bushi that suddenly shoved him away, their final scream
cut short as the ogre’s weapon crushed their chest. In a haze, Oguri saw the figure as the club lifted—
a figure in the teal of the Mantis... but a sailor, loyal to the end. Thank you for saving my life. I’m
sorry you didn’t die on the ocean, he thought numbly.
Time snapped back into focus as the ogre’s attention returned to him, and before Oguri had
a chance to plan, he lashed out again, crushing the creature’s arm and causing it to drop its club. It
roared, reaching for him with its nonmangled hand, and he scrambled backwards in a panic, trying
to outpace the giant creature’s inexorable advance—
All of a sudden, the ogre’s roar of rage turned into one of confusion, and it wobbled as a
sheet of ice formed beneath its feet. Oguri looked to his left to see one of the twins, hair wild about
their face, expression one of fierce concentration. The other appeared to their left, and at a gesture,
sent a gust of wind to tip the ogre onto its back. The beast struggled to stand, and the two shugenja
joined hands, using their free ones to stretch to the sides, forming long daggers of ice in the air. A
wave, and they flew forward, ramming into the ogre’s body, turning its roars into a death gurgle,
steam rising from the ice around it as the body collapsed to the ground.
Oguri stared at the pair, who suddenly slumped, exhausted, against one another. A
waterfall—that’s what Kudaka said, he remembered. Such incredible power, but so exhausting to
unleash it.
“Are you all right?” he called to them, running over and helping them back to their feet. The
two looked exhausted, but nodded—and another shriek drew their attention away, and the three
were again immersed in the chaos of combat.

735
 It felt like a thousand years before the battle was over, but soon the haze lifted, and Oguri
found himself without an enemy before him, the courtyard slick with gore, red and black blood alike
gummed into brown dirt and red dust. He coughed and was shocked at how raw his throat felt,
realizing suddenly that loud screaming he’d been hearing throughout the battle had been him.
“Quite the fight,” a voice croaked behind him, and he turned to see Kudaka coming down
the steps from the walls, carefully picking her way amid the bodies and chaos.
“Quite the distraction,” Oguri countered. “I don’t want to think about how this could have
gone without your help.” Kudaka snorted—that snort—and waved her hand in dismissal.
“Just a bit of fun. Just don’t ask me to... clean up...” She froze suddenly, her face intense,
staring across the courtyard. Confused, Oguri followed her gaze and saw the twins slumped against
one another again, unmoving; but unlike before, their expressions were not ones of exhaustion, but
a rapt and dreamlike gaze, eyes unfocused. The fingers of one of them—he could never tell which
was which—began to wiggle as if it was being pulled by a curious child.
“No!” Kudaka suddenly screamed, stalking forward like fire advancing across dry grass. She
grabbed a pouch from her side and tugged it open, grabbing the substance within and throwing it
into the air toward the twins. To Oguri’s surprise, it hung in the air as if stuck to something invisible,
and a low hiss seemed to emit from somewhere close but indistinct. Kudaka cried out some words
he didn’t know, and the substance seemed to expand like a net around something in the air: an odd
swirling kind of smoke and dust, vaguely humanoid. It turned a face—A face? Is that it?—toward
Kudaka, its dark smudge eyes and mouth widening in a soundless scream.
“Salt and ash, bone and sand bind you!” Kudaka shrieked, her eyes full of fury. “Kami of
earth and air, I call on you to aid me and banish this abomination!” She clapped her hands together,
sending everyone in the courtyard staggering backwards as a gust of wind rocketed outwards in all
directions from that strike, and the substance around the... thing... coalesced further, like the threads
of a fishing net.
“BEGONE!” came the final cry, and as Kudaka tore her hands apart, the bindings of the
creature drew taut and ripped it to pieces, the ghost of a scream fading into the air. There was a quiet
moment afterward as she panted for breath, and then the twins blinked, bewildered—and Kudaka
collapsed. Oguri was there to catch the woman before she hit the ground, quickly guiding her over
to an overturned barrel to sit and catch her breath. Fuu and Umi ran over immediately, falling over

736
themselves with apologies. This is maybe the first time I’ve heard them speak, thought Oguri
absently.
“Stop frettin’ and bein’ so full of sorry,” Kudaka groaned, waving at her protégés. “Gimme
some water if you wanna be useful—and some saké if we got any. This retakin’ watchtowers is
thirsty work.” The twins ran off, and Oguri looked seriously at the older tenkinja.
“What in Jigoku was that thing?”
Her laugh was dry and bitter, almost a cough. “Never seen a kansen? They try to seduce and
overpower shugenja. Heard their whispers here and there on the trip, sure, but still surprised one
dared to actually make a move.” Her voice got low. “I’d rather ‘ave never seen one again.”
Oguri’s stomach knotted. “A kansen?” he gasped. “I had hoped they would not appear this
close to the border. If I may ask... when have you see one?”
Her gaze was dark. “Sometimes you get a novice shugenja, wants to be powerful in a hurry,
does some forbidden magic and summons one.” She pursed her lips, mind in the past. “Fellow
apprentice did that, back when I was just a scrap of a thing. I was doin’ better than them at nearly
everything, and they wanted to punish me for it. Kansen grabbed me, just like it did Fuu and Umi
there, and thankfully my master saw it and got rid of it before it got rid of me.” She winced, coughed,
and spat into the bloody mud. “Took the other apprentice along with it, too. Master taught me how
to banish them, but never thought I’d have to do it.”
“Why did it come here?”
Kudaka shrugged, then groaned at the effort. “Ugh, I’m definitely not young as I used t’ be...
Easy guess is it smelled the talent in the twins and couldn’t resist tryin’ to get its claws into ‘em—
they’re skilled, but they ain’t never needed to protect themselves from those kinda threats. Still, this
close to the border, like you said...” She started to shake her head, then stopped with a wince.
“Somethin’ called them here, maybe. Somethin’ very strong.” Her gaze locked onto Oguri’s. “I
think it was here well before we showed up, too.”
Fuu and Umi returned with water and saké, and he left the two of them to take care of their
master as he went to survey the cost of the battle. They had been fortunate, if the word could really
be used. Their numbers had not suffered much, while the numbers of enemy dead were impressive.
Even without the two ogres, the number of goblins present had been daunting. Oguri instructed the
troops in the proper method of disposing of the enemy bodies and before long a pyre roared outside

737
the watchtower, ready to receive the dead and send their souls—or what passed for them—back to
Jigoku.
It was hours later when the last body was tossed on the waning blaze, sending ripples of light
against the darkening surface of the river. On board the Poison Tide, Fuu and Umi continued to
protest, arguing with Kudaka even as the small contingent of sailors pulled up anchor and began to
unfurl the sails for the journey south. From atop the ruined watchtower, Oguri watched master and
students bicker, until finally Kudaka settled the argument with a blast of wind from her hands,
sending the ship scudding along southward, to bring the news of the watchtower’s fall and recovery
to the outposts along the route back down to Kyuden Hida. Switching his gaze to the goings-on in
the courtyard below, Oguri was pleased to see most of the rubble had been cleared out from the
breach, and one of the masons—very glad I was able to find one who could come along, he thought
with relief—sketching out repair plans in the dim light of a lantern.
He heard Kudaka coming this time, her tread heavy on the stairs behind him. “Are you doing
all right?” he asked with concern, and the tenkinja waved him off.
“I’ll be fine,” she growled. “Don’t cluck at me like a mother hen. All that fightin’ carries a
big price, and I ain’t young like those two.” She gestured at the disappearing form of the Poison
Tide and sighed. “Hate t’ send ‘em away, but they ain’t safe here.”
She laughed wryly. “Not like anyone is, really.”
Oguri grunted agreement, then sighed, watching the shadows stretch longer over the
courtyard for a moment before he spoke again. “The bakemono were wearing armor.”
“Ain’t that usual for goblins?”
“Not like this.” Oguri chewed his lip. “It looked almost like a uniform. Had little things
scrawled on it, all the same symbol. Ogres had it on too.”
“Hm. Organization, huh?” Kudaka bit off a bit of a nail and spit it over the edge of the wall.
“Don’t sound good. That and the kami bein’ on edge... bad sign.” She looked at him seriously. “You
sure we shoulda sent out them messengers? I mean, havin’ the Poison Tide leaving was bad enough,
but that had to be done. What about sendin’ notice overland?”
“Not much choice.” He sighed. “More outposts need to know what happened at the
Watchtower of the Sun’s Shadow. They need to be prepared for anything that might be coming.”
“Yeah?” Kudaka glanced at him, her concern evident even in the growing dark. “And what
about us?”

738
 Oguri took a deep breath, watching the last rays of light spreading over the Shadowlands
beyond. All his life, he’d known it was out there, a threat ever-present, waiting. This was the first
time he truly felt that it was looming—and looking right back at him.
“We pray,” he said quietly, and the sun slipped over the horizon.

739
Long ago, a powerful mountain spirit looked to the sky and longed to visit the Heavens. Rooted to
the ground as she was, she raised her mountain home high into the sky so she could see the kingdom
of the gods for herself. Her mountain grew mighty, visible to even those dwelling above the clouds.
Lady Sun, angry with the spirit’s defiant act, sent down her son, the Lord of Flame, to protect
the secrets of the Heavens. He fought the mountain spirit, but as the Lord of Flame raised his fiery
sword to strike the killing blow, the impulsive god stayed his hand. He was unable to kill the
mountain spirit for her curiosity. Instead, the two went inside the mountain, and the Lord of Flame
shared his stories of Heaven. The two soon fell in love and were married.
Now living in more of a volcanic crater than a mountain peak, the pair forges wondrous
armaments of peerless craftsmanship for the gods from the molten slag. The fire in the mountain’s
heart has since never guttered or dimmed.
It was the fruits of this passion that had drawn Yoritomo, Captain of Captains, to the
mountain’s dark and secretive interior. This is where our story begins.

“Any time now, dearest wife!” Yoritomo’s attention was focused on the fray around him. He evaded
the black-sashed monks’ flurries of kicks and drove his fist into the nearest one. Linmei, Lady of
the Isles of Spice and Silk, studied a great black stone in the center of the chamber and smoldered
instead of answering.
“The kami are restless,” Kudaka the Stormweaver warned from beside him. Her lithe arms
were as effective at brawling as they were at honoring the spirits. “Linmei’s map has ’em scrambling
like crabs on a carcass. Can’t say I like it.”

740
 “Quit your worrying, Priest,” Yoritomo couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice as he felled
the last monk with a face-crunching knee strike. They would tackle any problem that came their
way. The tide comes and goes as it pleases, and just then what pleased Yoritomo most was the
thought of taking a spark from the mountain’s inner flame.
“Guiding star of my sky? Any luck?” Yoritomo turned to see his wife poring over the scroll.
“Oh, I’ll guide you somewhere, all right.” Linmei grumbled. “Quiet, I’m thinking!” For
hours, they’d followed her map, written in the language of the Isles spoken before the Fall of the
Kami—the ancestral language of the kōmori. For hours, the island’s secrets had stymied her: a
breakwater gate sealed to entry, ancient roads grown over, and many dead-end tunnels into the
mountain. Then, they had been set on by the island’s guardians, and Linmei’s ire had truly begun to
boil. By the time they reached this chamber, the sweltering weather seemed pleasant by comparison.
At the center of the room lay a black boulder, wide as a riverboat and shiny as polished
silver. Carved into its flat face were images of two large kami and a third smaller one. Surrounding
them were two-dozen dials with unfamiliar symbols arranged without a modicum of sense. Above,
the ceiling was a clear quartz dome holding back a lake of boiling magma. The sickly orange glow
of magma lit stone tables, counters, and chests, sparsely arranged over smooth marble floors. But
the furnishings were unimportant: this stone was the only thing left that stood between Yoritomo
and his prize.
“Does your map contain some sort of key to open it?” Yoritomo was glad for his wife’s
presence, for her gift for riddles and ciphers had gotten them this far already. At the heart of the
mountain, fire and earth’s private secrets lay hidden for only the most daring to discover.
“A key of sorts. It’s a star map from our ancestors’ farthest travels. We can’t see these parts
of the Heavens from the Islands of Spice and Silk, so I’m not familiar with the stars,” Linmei
explained, brushing aside Yoritomo’s hand from the dials. “But I’ve traced the points on the map to
represent the constellations on the stone, and it isn’t working.”
“Is that not the Celestial Pillar of Mweneta?” Kudaka offered as she looked at the
constellations.
“Of course!” Linmei’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Yoritomo had seen this look many
times over the past few years. She would have the seal open soon. “Of course, south is at the top!”
Linmei flipped the map upside down and started busily tracing new constellations.

741
 “Fu-Mo-To! Fu-Mo-To! Fu-Mo-To!” a new group of monks emerged from the cavern
behind them. One stepped forward, a mountain of a man who dwarfed even Yoritomo’s prodigious
size.
“You do not belong here,” he bellowed.
This was their champion!
Yoritomo grinned his most fearsome smile. Kudaka rolled up her green linen sleeves. Linmei
did not flinch from her tracings on the black stone. The monk lowered himself deep into a horse
stance. Silence fell over the chamber.
Kudaka mouthed a prayer, then thrust her arms forward. A gale-force wind rushed past
Yoritomo toward the monks, who shouted and scattered like gulls chased from a ship’s deck.
Fumoto, however, was unmoved.
Yoritomo took two steps and slid toward the monk, letting the current of Kudaka’s winds
carry him. As he passed between the monk’s legs, he struck a blow most would consider
dishonorable—or at least impolite—and nimbly rolled back to his feet before delivering a kick to
the back of the leg that drove the monk to his knees. Kudaka’s winds abruptly ceased, and
Yoritomo’s arms encircled the monk’s head and throat, squeezing with the power of a raging river.
Seconds later, the oversized monk was unconscious on the stone floor.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Yoritomo grinned. He turned to face the other monks, who
quailed at the sight of his flawless martial prowess. Kudaka gestured up a gale, and the monks
immediately took flight. The chamber was now empty, but like the pestering sea-birds they were,
the monks would soon grow bold and return to try again.
“It wouldn’ta worked quite so well on some of us,” Kudaka chuffed.
“I am well aware of when there is a woman in my presence, Kudaka,” Yoritomo answered.
“It’s why I’m never caught flat-footed!”
“We know you can’t resist a pretty face, husband,” Linmei rolled her eyes.
All brashness, Yoritomo responded. “No one will best me, wife, no matter how beautiful.”
“Not the so-called Princess of Pirates?” Linmei’s jibe had more bite than expected.
“That was business!” Yoritomo stammered, shock written across his face.
He stepped close to her until only the chart separated them. He gently brushed away some
of the soot from her face, letting her unmatched beauty shine through. They locked eyes, and for a
moment, shared a secret smile. Then she pulled away, resuming her work on the dials.

742
 “It was just some liquor to celebrate an arrangement,” Yoritomo continued. “A little boasting
about the time we took that Saamrajya ship, then a quick jaunt to Kirtinaramto to prove that boast,
then some more liquor that we stole, a shark hunt, and then a little celebratory liquor. The rest after
that is... hazy, but I know nothing happened between us.”
The so-called Princess of Pirates was Damayanti of the Ivory Kingdoms, also known as
Damayanti the Red. Some claim that she leads a fleet larger than Yoritomo’s. But that depends on
which ships you count, and they can hardly claim to rival the Mantis’s courage!
“Yoritomo, the heart—”
“Yes, the heart can lead one astray, but if anything had happened, you would know of it.”
Yoritomo fixed her with his most sincere gaze. She rolled her eyes, as she was so accustomed to
doing.
“You’re a fool. Look!” Linmei grabbed his wide chin and turned his head toward the
mandala. Where the representation of the earth kami stood, a cavity had opened in its rocky torso,
revealing a lever. Yoritomo’s eyes lit up.
Linmei reached her hand into the figure’s chest and pulled the lever. The giant seal in the
boulder’s face spun and belched an angry blast of heat around its edges. It opened to reveal the jade
of heavenly memory: the Heart of the Mountain.
It was beautiful—a flat disc of red jade nearly as large as an open scroll polished to
translucency. With this treasure, the prowess, bravery, and honor of the Mantis Clan could no longer
be ignored. The Mantis would be respected, not thought of as criminals and pirates, but as equals in
the eyes of the Emperor. It would set right all the insults Yoritomo’s ancestors had suffered, and
they would no longer be forgotten as honorless exiles.
Yoritomo reached in and took the Heart into his hands.
“Yoritomo, wait! Don’t grab—”
But Kudaka’s warning was too late! A sickening crunch drew all eyes to the quartz dome
overhead, where a large crack was slowly beginning to spread. Linmei and Kudaka’s eyes turned in
unison to Yoritomo in aggravation, and even the Captain of Captains shuddered—but only a bit.
Yoritomo stuffed the Heart into a satchel.
“We need to run, now,” Linmei pointed down the tunnel. Yoritomo nodded and sprinted
after her with Kudaka ever at his side. After a minute of racing through the cavern, they reached a
fork in the tunnel.

743
 Linmei stopped and scanned her map, which she thought she had remembered exactly.
Unfortunately, she had. “This tunnel isn’t even on the map!”
“Fresh air, this way.” Kudaka gestured to the right. A loud crash echoed through the tunnel,
and a violent shudder passed under their feet, as if something large was passing beneath them. “Let’s
go!”
Behind them, an eerie orange glow brightened. After a few moments, thick black smoke
filled the tunnel, and soon all three were coughing and wheezing. After several complicated twists
and turns, they found an air shaft within reach.
The opening was small, but Linmei and Kudaka fit through easily enough. After no small
amount of pulling, Yoritomo’s broad-shouldered frame passed through as well. They sought refuge
on a rocky outcropping above, which extended over the water of the bay where the Bitter Wind
awaited them. Suddenly, an explosion of lava erupted out of the air shaft, carving a fiery path to the
water.
Fresh, cool air had never tasted so sweet. Yoritomo wanted nothing more than to lie
peacefully on the outcropping with these two women, their prize now in hand. They could overlook
the narrow inlet that circled the western side of the mountain and drink clear water until their
stomachs burst. Unfortunately, they had only minutes before the monks who had fled made their
way around and caught up to them. Seaward along the inlet, other monks already busied themselves
on both sides of the breakwater gate. Below, on Yoritomo’s left, the Bitter Wind was at half-sail. It
would pass the outcropping they stood on in moments.
“Linmei, how are you feeling?” The mountain belched black smoke. Soon, the gates out of
the bay would be closed to them.
She sighed between deep gulps of cool air and glared at him.
“Like you didn’t think this through.”
“But we need to get through that gate.”
Kudaka gestured to the column of smoke. “I think that gate’s the least of our problems.” She
spat a glob of black ash onto the rocks. “The children of Tenyama, Kagu-tsuchi, and Ryujin’re
making war o’er that way. None’a that will involve listening to me.”
Yoritomo tightened the latch on his satchel. His quest to elevate his clan to greater status
drove him on, and he would gladly shoulder any risk to lead his people to that future. But, should

744
they not live to see it, would the victory be worth the price? Was this mystery he now held in his
satchel worth Linmei’s life, or Kudaka’s?
Linmei leaned on a rock, still coughing the ash from her lungs and brushing the dust from
her kimono. Kudaka had her eyes closed and was trying to calm her breathing. Yoritomo held
himself up as if running from an exploding mountain were nothing more than a brisk jog, but his
muscles ached something fierce. His determination and bravery had helped get the Heart into their
hands, but his wife was right: he had never thought this through. Now, they needed a plan. “My
fearless and cunning wife, what do you think is our best bet off this rock?”
“Why don’t you ask Damayanti the Red to solve this problem for you?” Linmei hissed.
“What? Nothing happened! It was a business arrangement!” Yoritomo said.
“I know, dammit!” Linmei caught her breath and pushed herself to her feet to stand before
him. “That’s what I’m angry about! How did you let her swindle you into such poor terms again?
You should have consulted me!”
“What’s wrong with the terms we got? They agreed to joint raids in Swaramar Bay. Leaving
the Kailash Strait to them was more than fair!” Yoritomo responded with equal intensity.
“Joint raids means we’ll be fighting them as often as not! And the Kailash Strait gives them
direct access to the Venkar Islands, which are their ancestral grounds—we could have gotten a much
better deal for access to those!” Linmei glared up at her husband. “This is exactly how we end up in
situations like this one.”
They continued arguing like this for several minutes. When those two quarreled, as Kudaka
said, it was best to just sit back and let them burn their conflict out. Fortunately, such spats usually
don’t take place on an angry mountain.
“Linmei, please.” Yoritomo finally pleaded. “Can we deal with one thing at a time?”
Linmei’s sigh was loud and full of frustration.
“Fine. I can get us through the gate; just keep the ship heading out of the bay.” She jabbed a
finger at his chest. “Next time you conduct business, run it by me first. I don’t want you losing the
whole fleet to your bravado.” She turned back toward the mountains and darted inside one of the
caves.
“You can’t tell me what to do!” Yoritomo shouted after her, hands on his hips. “I’m a
daimyō!” But Linmei was already gone. Yoritomo and Kudaka stood together, waiting for the Bitter
Wind to pass below the rocky outcropping.

745
 “Don’t you say it,” Yoritomo warned. Long moments passed in silence as their glorious
vessel drew into sight. The Bitter Wind was marvelous, a hybrid of gaijin and Rokugani construction
of Yoritomo’s own design. Her keel ran deeper in the water than most Rokugani craft, but Yoritomo
had achieved a stability and maneuverability any captain would envy. Five broad green square sails
can turn the slightest breeze into incredible speed, particularly with Kudaka’s help.
“Smooth as a cloudless sail ‘cross Dark Water Bay.” She was smirking to herself, but he
noticed.
“I’m so lucky to have an advocate like you in my marriage.”
Kudaka made an exaggerated bow.
The ship pulled up below them. Yoritomo waved at his favorite cousin, the dashing Byoki,
who was helping the tiller crew at the aft end of the ship to guide it along the rocks.
“Can your old bones handle this jump, or do I need to carry you?”
Kudaka spat at Yoritomo’s feet and leapt off the rocks. Yoritomo followed, landing hard and
rolling across the deck. Kudaka landed moments after him, as lightly as if stepping off a wagon. The
two approached Byoki, loyal crewmate and steady hand, who had expertly guided the ship in their
absence.
“Where’s Linmei?” Byoki asked. “And what are we going to do about the breakwater gate?
They’re already shutting it; we’ll never get there in time.”
“Just keep us off the rocks, cousin, and make all possible speed.” Yoritomo clapped loyal
Byoki on the shoulder. “Linmei has the gate covered.”
Kudaka stood behind them, looking out over the fantail of the Bitter Wind, communing with
the kami warring across the inlet. She looked stronger now that she was back on the water. Yoritomo
placed a hand gently on her back, not wanting to interrupt her arranged fingers and mumbled prayers.
The inlet waters were choppier than they should be, like a long strip of spiked armor.
Kudaka looked up to Yoritomo, her eyes wide in fear.
A moment later the mountain roared like a tiger! Arcs of orange and black erupted from its
peak. Boulders and sprays of lava rained down like a volley of fiery arrows. The water crashed and
sprayed in front of the ship as boulders the size of castles slammed into the inlet and filled it with
smoke, fire, and stone. Through the haze, the sky glowed like a grim sunset.
“Kudaka!” Yoritomo shouted for her as the ship lurched beneath him. Without visibility, the
ship caromed off the new rocky navigation hazards, knocking crew off their feet and chipping the

746
hardened wood of the hull. Kudaka turned and gestured wildly in the hopes of catching the attention
of some kami, any kami, but none answered. The crew was struggling to regain their feet. They
looked scared. Whatever Kudaka was trying to do, it wasn’t working fast enough.
“Hull teams below!” Yoritomo shouted his orders with the unquestionable authority of
command. “Main sail at full, douse the rest!” The crew snapped out of their fear at the sound of his
voice and attended Yoritomo’s orders. He leapt up the aft mast where he hoped to get above the
haze and call down bearings.
From his elevated position, Yoritomo could see the gate, already a third of the way shut. It
was still perhaps three times as far as Yoritomo could shoot an arrow. Linmei needed to hurry. The
ship shuddered as it bounced off another rock, and Yoritomo nearly lost his grip. He scanned what
he could see of the water. If they kept to the left, they would soon be out of the rocks and haze.
“Byoki! Thirty degrees to port!” Yoritomo shouted below.
The Bitter Wind veered at his command under Byoki’s dutiful hand. Then the mountain
erupted again. A stream of lava clawed through the air toward the ship, and briefly all Yoritomo
could see were red streaks above him.
“Get below!” Yoritomo shouted. “Everyone get below, now!” He repositioned himself,
taking cover behind the mast as molten slop peppered the deck and blistering vapor filled the air. A
swirl of wind around Kudaka blasted away the acrid smoke; she was safe, and now Yoritomo could
see clearly. The ship was running free, with no hand on the tiller. The molten fire had speckled the
deck, and the mainsail was aflame. Screams of the men and women that hadn’t made it to cover
filled Yoritomo’s ears. He knew what he had to do, so he grabbed a line and rappelled back to the
deck.
But a spray of orange filled his field of vision and his face exploded in pain. The line snapped
and Yoritomo slammed into the deck, clutching his face as agony overwhelmed him.
Byoki shouted for his captain, emerging from the relative safety below. Kudaka splashed a
bucket of water in Yoritomo’s face and the thin line of lava on his right side steamed and fell away.
He wiped away the flaky crust and tried to blink away the pain within his head. The skin felt tight
and numb, and his vision was blurred.
“How bad is it?” Yoritomo asked Kudaka.
“You just got a little prettier,” Kudaka helped him to his feet. “Will you live?”

747
 Yoritomo grimaced, but nodded. Kudaka took the burned rope from his hand. “Good. I’ll
tend to that later. Your wife’ll kill you if we don’t make it out of here. Back to it, captain.”
The fresh scar only made Yoritomo’s grin the fiercer. Still burning, the ship finally emerged
from the haze, but they had been thrown off course and were careening toward the side of the inlet.
If someone didn’t get on that tiller immediately, they’d be wrecked. It swung freely like an angry
serpent, covered in flames.
“All hands, return to your stations!” Yoritomo ordered. “Fire teams, get water on the tiller!
Douse the mainsail before we lose it and give me full on the rest!” Byoki snatched up Kudaka’s
empty bucket and dashed away to refill it. But Yoritomo knew there wasn’t time to wait.
He leapt across the cooling lava, narrowly avoiding a searing fate as he grabbed the long end
of the tiller and heaved with all his might. Willing himself to ignore the searing pain on his palms,
he leaned inward, leveraging his entire body to straighten the ship. But the rudder would not budge.
Yoritomo yelled with pain and effort, setting his entire self—ambition and pride and cunning and
all the rest—against the rebellious current.
The tiller moved.
The ship began to straighten, but then the ship hit a rock and Yoritomo’s feet slipped along
the deck. For a moment, the tiller began to shift back to follow the current. The rocky wall loomed
large before them. But as his hands bled on the tiller, another pair joined them—Byoki set his grip
alongside his captain’s and their flesh burned together. Then another pair of hands, and another.
“It’s not over yet!” Yoritomo’s shout was as much for himself as for his crew. He took a
deep breath and pushed his focus past the noise of the desperate crew behind him. He took one step,
defying the smug Lion, Crane, Phoenix, and even Scorpion samurai that had stood over him,
mocking the Mantis, telling him he was not worthy. He defied the assassins that took his family, the
imposter he had called father for years. He defied those who impugned his people’s honor. Driven
on by his crew’s devotion, he forced the tiller to bend to his will. He defied all those who had stood
in his way and had told him what couldn’t be done. Then he had a vision of Linmei, a brief image
of his wife nursing a child while studying an old book. Yoritomo grunted with exertion as he took
the final step toward her and the tiller steadied.
The ship pointed toward the breakwater gate once again. Kudaka returned with wetted
blankets to smother the remaining flames on the tiller while fresh sailors relieved those who had
been straining with Yoritomo. The captain’s legs collapsed and he sat on the deck in a momentary

748
heap of exhaustion. He stared at his hands, blackened and burnt, and felt the scar newly seared across
his face. He made tight fists, letting the pain feed his will to live. To see the Mantis elevated.
“Cousin, we near the breakwater!” Byoki shouted.
Yoritomo took a breath and stood. The gate was nearly closed, and would lock long before
they reached it. Monks lit their arrows and nocked them, rows of tiny flames like candles at a shrine.
They’d be in range within moments.
“Lengthen those sails,” Yoritomo called out. “I want us making all possible speed!”
“Cousin, what about that gate?” Byoki was genuinely concerned. “Perhaps we could turn
back to a cave, wait out the eruption.”
“Linmei is coming.” Yoritomo stood and watched the breakwater grow larger. He could
make out the details of individual monks’ faces now with his eye that wasn’t swollen shut.
The gate was seconds from closing when the inlet was suddenly filled with a thousand ear-
piercing shrieks. A black cloud erupted from the side of the mountain and stretched toward the
breakwater, moving too fast to be smoke. The crew collectively gasped.
“Kudaka, what is that?” Byoki pointed to the unnatural black cloud.
“Not my place t’say,” Kudaka shrugged, turning her attentions back to the water.
“That is my wife.” Yoritomo smiled so hard he felt the skin crack over his right cheek. She
was magnificent. Their children would surely rule all of Rokugan.
Byoki stared at him in surprise.
The cloud-that-was-not-smoke lashed out like a whip, expanding, contracting, twisting,
turning. It streamed over the breakwater gate and monks cried out and leapt into the inlet waters to
avoid it. It screeched through the sky like a million doomed, angry souls—bats.
Then Byoki gasped in recognition. “A kōmori!”
“Yes!” Yoritomo laughed, all his pain forgotten. “Like in the stories, the yōkai who helped
our ancestor Kaimetsu-Uo first survive on the islands.”
The gate was now cleared of monks, so the bats that had driven them off dissipated back into
the surrounding rocks. All except for amidships, low on the deck, where a thick swarm of the
creatures swirled like a waterspout. Yoritomo grabbed a scorched blanket off the tiller and entered
the cloud. When the bats dispersed, Yoritomo stood there, his arms around his wife. The crew were
terrified, but still had the sense to be grateful for the woman that had made possible their escape.

749
 “Brace for impact!” Byoki shouted. Yoritomo grabbed a line and held onto his wife. The
Bitter Wind smashed into the unlocked gate. The ship shuddered, but the gate opened. They were
free. A great cheer rang out among the crew.
“Linmei,” Yoritomo started, brushing a stray hair from her face. “I was wrong to conduct
our business with Damayanti without your counsel.”
Linmei looked away, toward the south.
Yoritomo put his forehead to hers. “It won’t happen again. I swear it.”
Linmei looked back to him and raised an eyebrow.
Yoritomo’s eyes were full of mischief. “After all, how are you going to prove you’re half
the negotiator I am if all the business is left to me?”
Linmei pulled Yoritomo’s mouth to hers and kissed him.
“Y’know, the mantis female eats the head of the male after mating,” Kudaka offered.
Yoritomo was grinning. They were going to make it out alive. Most of them, anyway.
“Let’s get some wind in our sails, Kudaka.”
“It ain’t over, yet.” Kudaka warned.
A mournful wail filled the inlet behind them, though Yoritomo couldn’t tell if it was a horn
from the monk’s village or the mountain itself as it raged to the heavens. Then a deep, resounding,
earth-splitting crack echoed from below. Yoritomo watched as the rate of passing shore slowed,
stopped, and then, impossibly, began moving backward.
“Kudaka?” Yoritomo hoped he was wrong.
Her eyes went wide. “Maelstrom!”
“We need wind!” Yoritomo shouted, heaving on a line to open his sails more fully.
“Lengthen those sails, keep us ahead of the tide!”
The Bitter Wind’s sails billowed outward as Kudaka’s powers filled them, countering the
backward pull of the whirlpool. The ship crept forward slowly. Yoritomo and Linmei worked as one
mind, trimming sails and turning them to catch the most wind, trying desperately to hang on against
the current dragging them toward certain doom. Byoki manned the tiller, keeping them as stable as
any man could as the sea rose against them. Even the mainsail, pocked with holes from lava spray,
did its part. For long minutes they labored, the landmarks to either side of the ship unmoving.

750
 The wail sounded again, the trees shook, and the rocks tumbled. Then the current shifted,
and the Bitter Wind shot forward like an arrow from a bow. A cheer ended early when the ship
grazed a rock formation. Then another rock. They were moving far too fast to avoid all the hazards!
But suddenly the rocks disappeared beneath the water. Yoritomo’s orders were swallowed
up by the sounds of trees snapping and water rushing. Yoritomo looked behind him. He couldn’t
see the island. The water behind him was higher than his ship.
“Tsunami!” Yoritomo yelled over the roar of water. “Trim those sails, set storm conditions!
Extend the leeboards!” As Yoritomo repeated his instructions, Linmei secured a line to him, herself,
and Kudaka. The tenkinja whispered a prayer to the gods of the sea that they would make it safely
home.
When the wave passed under them, it tossed and pitched the Bitter Wind as if it were made
of paper. The ship bobbed in the pit behind the wave, sinking until Yoritomo’s ears popped. His
stomach flipped until he felt sick. Then they were rising, so fast even his experienced sea legs ached
just standing upright. Then the sea finally flattened out, and they were in the Bay of Black Water,
the island already small behind them. Even the mountain seemed half the size it had been mere
moments ago. A thin whisker of smoke at its nose and glowing stripes of lava along its sides made
it seem like a tiger. One they had barely escaped with their lives.
Yoritomo stood next to Kudaka on the fantail, and the pair watched the horizon. “That wave
couldn’t make landfall, could it Kudaka?”
“Hard to say.” She slumped slightly. “Ain’t ever easy to see what your actions will do. It’s
like tryin’ to see the ripples from a stone thrown in choppy water. And you like to toss boulders.”
Linmei went to Yoritomo and he held her tight. After a long moment, she broke the embrace
to trace the edges of the burn down his right eye and cheek. He gave her a crooked smile. He hoped
the scar was as dashing as he imagined. It certainly felt horrific.
Linmei then opened his satchel and removed the jade disc. She flattened the map out, laid
the disc over it, and angled it to catch the light. Filtered through the specific red of the unique jade,
entirely new symbols and images appeared. As Kudaka joined them over the map, a new puzzle was
unfolding. Together, they would solve these puzzles and unlock the secrets of all eleven realms.
And next, who knows? Perhaps they will even complete their quest to raise the Mantis and join the
Great Clans of Rokugan!

751
The children sitting near the bench sat in silence for a moment. But the moment passed, and one
burst forth with a question, breaking the dam for the rest:
“Didn’t Yoritomo get his scar dueling Umineko?”
“How much did it hurt to get burned?”
“Where is the red-jade disc now?”
The children’s eyes shone with excitement.
Byoki spun the platter he had been holding up as the red-jade disc and pantomimed casting
it into the sea, rocking it back and forth gently as it sank beneath invisible waves. “We lost it when
we fought the sea spider. Kudaka threw it into its eye to blind it, remember? It fell into the whirlpool,
sinking with the monster. I expect it’s still down there, a treasure waiting for some new hero to find
it. Maybe that’ll be you! Now get about your chores.”
The children dispersed in a babbling crowd, and Linmei approached Byoki. “That was quite
a tale you spun for the children. They’ll be asking to see me turn into a cloud or a bat for days, you
know, and I won’t thank you for that.”
Byoki smiled, rubbing the flame-scar on his palm. “Well, they need these kinds of stories.
Sets the fire in their bellies, makes them want to find their own treasure. A decksweeper doesn’t
become a captain in a year. A bunch of pirates don’t become a samurai clan in a decade. And it’s
easy to get too comfortable along the way. Even our champion loves a good tale to remind him what
he’s chasing. After all, we can’t disgrace the memory of everyone who didn’t make it by getting
lazy now, can we?”

752
At the request of the most honorable Champion Matsu, I have committed to paper a record of the
most recent assault that the Daidoji soldiers have attempted against our unassailable defense. Let
the historians of the future learn from their deceptive tactics and remember the efficacy of our
unyielding discipline.
The attack began at twilight two days ago, while the echoes of Amaterasu’s brilliance still
hung over the treetops and the cold winds attempted to drive us from the battlements. The cunning
and noble Daidoji Uji led his soldiers to the southern wall, where several of them took up their bows
and unloaded three volleys into our defenders. Their aim was true, but only one ashigaru fell to the
volley as we had witnessed their approach and taken ample cover behind the battlements. As
expected, the archery was meant only to suppress our defenses as his heavily armored warriors
moved to assault the gates. Thus the preparations of the Matsu Fourth Legion were made evident as
the attackers found the gate’s approach unassailable for the spears that had been entrenched and
hidden before it. Rather than risk their lives attempting to navigate the sharpened stakes that we had
placed, the Daidoji chose an immediate retreat.
The retreat was swift and organized, each samurai taking a position among their fellows such
that no clear vulnerabilities could be found for our archers to exploit. Our archers, hidden behind
the arrow slits of the palace’s walls for this exact occasion, attempted to fell the retreating Daidoji
but found no openings in their heavy armor and decisive discipline. Meanwhile, the Daidoji archers
who had driven our battlement-guards into cover resumed their volleys, each firing six or seven
more shafts into our defenders. They felled four more of our ashigaru, for in our haste to strike down

753
the retreating samurai our archers placed themselves where the Daidoji veterans could strike them
down.
It is clear upon retrospect that this assault upon the gate, the third such attempt yet, was not
intended to be the main thrust of Daidoji Uji’s recapture of the palace. His soldiers were too prepared
for a retreat, and the timing of their arrows too precisely coordinated with the movements of the
attacking samurai to be anything other than a feint in expectation of our defenses. This is more
evident upon the infiltration attempt made by Uji’s five scouts upon the northern windows,
ultimately rebuffed by the Ikoma Auxiliaries and my own lieutenants. Had my soldiers not taken
the initiative and made themselves battle-ready, it is likely that we would have lost far more than
the ten ashigaru and four samurai who fell to the infiltrators’ swords.
The Daidoji gained access to the palace through the northeastern second-story windows,
which open from a room that once held some manner of artist’s dōjō. (It is now a shrine to the spirit
of the venerable Akodo Arasou.) The climb they undertook should not have been possible in such
dim light, yet they had the help of tekagi and were intimately familiar with the wall face that they
successfully scaled. No one was in the shrine when they shattered the lock and entered, though many
of our soldiers were resting and entertaining themselves in adjacent rooms. One of our ashigaru, a
woman named Emiko, heard a disturbance as the scouts exited the shrine and commanded her
comrades to arm themselves. They quickly found and confronted the infiltrators, courageously
facing them alone to cut off the Crane soldiers before they disrupted the rest of the castle, but were
each slain in the skirmish. Through their bravery, the infiltrators were delayed long enough for a
runner to alert me to their presence that I could lead a counterattack to cut them down.
For my part, I found myself unable to finish the meal whose preparation I had enjoyed earlier
that evening. Though our Champion was overseeing the rout of the attack upon the gates, and my
services were not needed, I found myself drawn to the armor that I had removed upon completing
my daily duties an hour earlier. In this lapse of focus, which I believe came as a warning to me from
the honored spirit of Akodo Arasou, I determined to ensure that no deception was at work in Daidoji
Uji’s assault. With little more than my pauldrons and my swords, I ventured through the castle walls
in search of trouble. This was what led me to the ashigaru runner, and subsequently the great
skirmish in which seven of our samurai and twelve of our ashigaru finally trapped the Daidoji
infiltrators and dispatched them.

754
 This represents the sixth defeat of the Daidoji forces in the past month since their siege
began. Our numbers are many and theirs are few, so soon they will be unable to capture the palace
that Champion Matsu has so gloriously taken from them. As winter sets in, the open field will be
too inhospitable for their war camp to remain, and the supplies from the Ikoma logisticians will be
able to supply us through the cold months. Each battle in which we rebuff them only shows that the
might of the Lion cannot be withstood even by those who believe that they have bested our
champion. By year’s end, the feud between Lady Matsu and the foolish Kakita shall finally be put
to rest as Matsu Tsuko proves her strength to the Emerald Empire.

Recorded this twenty fourth day in the Month of Shinjo,

Akodo Zentarō, Commander of the Lion

My Great Champion and Beloved Mother,

I write to you from beneath a grim low-hanging cloud which conspires to sap the morale of our
cousins as the autumn rains drag on. My company has engaged the Lion in a dozen skirmishes over
the past months yet they remain undeterred in their reckless aggression. Our numbers dwindle while
theirs continue to be fortified by a seemingly endless supply of reserves, and our samurai are
beginning to grow weary of the constant traveling as our army and those of the Lion pursue each
other in search of a strategic advantage that rarely manifests. As the fighting has dragged on, victory
remains further and further out of sight.
General Ikoma Tsanuri leads a large contingent of samurai and ashigaru and has not hesitated
to push forward into our lands, taking each village she descends upon. We have lost Springbloom
Village, Ashige Village, and now Onon Village to her armies. Shinjo Hideo-sama has led our
Miname Kaze company with great effectiveness aided by Governor Moto Juro, and thus the other
nearby villages of Hisu Mori Village and Selenge Village have remained safe. But we are not meant
to sit behind walls and withstand a besieging army. If we do not cut off General Tsanuri’s armies
from their supply lines and overwhelm them with our prowess on the field, I fear that they may
advance into the heart of Ikoku Province and deprive our clan of much-needed supplies for taxes
and for the oncoming winter.

755
 In an attempt to disrupt the Lion’s war effort, Hideo-sama sent the vanguard of the Miname
Kaze south to confront the legions of the Akodo on the Plains of Bloodied Honor. A fortnight ago
they clashed with the meager Lion defenses, and would have easily captured both Four Roads
Village and Fallen Oak Village had General Akodo Kyōsuke not interceded unexpectedly with
reserve forces from Hayaken no Shiro. Despite the bravery of Shinjo Kyōra in her glorious skirmish
against four of Kyōsuke’s finest samurai at the Gentle Waters gates, we were unable to press through
Kyōsuke’s swift and disciplined defense. The battle lasted six days before the Miname Kaze regulars
finally retreated in defeat.
Any contingents of the Blue Horde that can be spared to aid us in overtaking General
Kyōsuke’s defenses would be most welcome in these dim hours. And as I have heard rumors that
you are now personally leading the Horde, it would bring me great joy to see my mother once again
and fight by her side. Your courage and prowess are spoken of with great reverence among my
company, and it would be a blessing of Amaterasu should the winds bring you to inspire us once
again.

Your son,
Shinjo Yasamura

My Lord Regent,

While the evening skies above Shiro Yogo have continued to remain clear and calm, a shadow
approaches from the forest. The spirits of the mountains and the forest rumble with growing urgency,
warning of a cur∫e of violence that has befallen the countryside to the north. They continue to keep
us safe from harm, yet the arrival of your servants has troubled them.
I am sending as many of my most learned shugenja as possible to assist you in the capital.
Since her arrival several days ago, Captain Masayo has revealed to me the depths of the other clans’
disloyalty, and it fills my heart with ire. That you must stave off the dogged conspiracies of trea∫on
uppon your leadership at such a portentous time only heightens the need for solidarity. The army of
the Dragon has proven its loyalty in keeping you safe from physical assault, and soon your spirit’s
defenses shall be bolstered as well. I only hope that it is enough, and that the diviners find no further
affliction plaguing the Throne.

756
 While you maintain your vigil over Rokugan, I shall carry out the duty that you have
entrusted to me. My meditations have failed to provide me þe blæde with which to cut through the
fearsome miasma that surrounds my task. It carries within it the whispers of jealousy and despair:
of a crime so heinous it echoes to the very heart of Jigoku itself.
We must remain vigilant against the temptations of the Fallen One, whose war against
Togashi rages without end. His way is insidious and seductive, and I fear it has already reached
through the borders of the Empire. The portents I have seen imply an act against Heaven that
threatens to sunder not only the legacy of þe Hantei but that of the entire Empire. But do not let such
dire warnings dissuade you from your duty to the Throne, for I shall not abandon my duty unless
my very soul is sundered. There is nowhere safer in all of Rokugan for it to remain than the Castle
of Learning.
You act with the cunning of Bayushi-no-Kami and the favor of Hantei-no-Kami, whose
legacy guides us all. Let your rule remain strong until the Children of Heaven are returned in purity.

Ever your loyal servant,

Yogo Junzo
Daimyō of the Yogo

757
“I understand you have something you wish to show us.” The door slid shut behind Kitsuki Chiari.
The investigator bowed to the Ruby Champion and sat. Tea steamed between them, yet
Agasha Sumiko seemed to take no notice of it, and Chiari paid it no mind. Only Kitsuki Yaruma,
sitting to Sumiko’s right, acknowledged its existence by pouring some for himself as he watched
the younger woman settle onto her knees before the Regent’s chief enforcer.
At first, only the quiet padding of feet on the lacquered floor answered Sumiko’s statement.
Chiari waited as the warrior who had closed the door behind her—renowned hatamoto Mirumoto
Hitomi—returned to the Ruby Champion’s side. Unlike Ambassador Yaruma, who comfortably
awaited Chiari’s report, Hitomi wore her swords openly and remained standing. Chiari had not
requested Hitomi’s presence for this meeting, but the clear threat of a trained duelist indicated that
Sumiko was taking Chiari’s testimony quite seriously.
Since Chiari had first informed Yaruma of the importance of her testimony, the emptiness
in her stomach had only grown. Either the testimony would dismantle the very legitimacy of the
Emerald Empire, or she would be quietly removed from her post, never to be seen again. Lord
Justicar Gorō had always taught her that nothing mattered except the truth. Yet Agasha Sumiko
served Regent Bayushi Shoju, a Bayushi who had a tenuous relationship with the truth at best.
Kitsuki Chiari swallowed and reached into her obi, withdrawing a small scroll tied with a
crimson ribbon.
“Three things, Agasha-sama,” Chiari said. “Two are but testimony, while the third can be
read in this message from Lord Yogo to Bayushi Shoju.”

758
 Hitomi and Yaruma both looked to the scroll with interest while Sumiko watched Chiari’s
expression. The intensity in the Ruby Champion’s eyes bore down upon her, daring her to hesitate
or retreat. Chiari did not move, yet her heart beat swiftly. Her discovery could be presented to no
one else. Only Agasha Sumiko could act upon what Chiari had learned. Steeling herself, she met
Sumiko’s gaze unflinchingly.
Yaruma reached forward to take the scroll. While he read, Sumiko spoke. “And what is it
you have uncovered?”
“The truth about His Excellency, the late Hantei,” Chiari replied. “I’m afraid our esteemed
Regent has not been entirely truthful.”
Sumiko’s brow furrowed in response. “I suggest you choose your words carefully, Kitsuki-
san.”
Chiari breathed. She always chose her words carefully. “Please allow me to present my
evidence. The first, which you likely already know, is that the ancestral sword of the Hantei is no
longer in the palace. Sometime within the past few weeks, it was sent to the lands of the Yogo,
where dangerous artifacts are kept safe.”
Sumiko shifted slightly on her heels. A subtle but unexpected gesture. Perhaps she does not
know after all.
Yet despite her discomfort, Sumiko’s expression betrayed no recognition—or lack of it.
“What makes you think so?”

All of the threads led back to Bayushi Sōtatsu, though Chiari could not easily see why. The assistant
director of palace upkeep had identified Sōtatsu as the administrator responsible for selecting the
newest servants for the Imperial Palace, those who had started suddenly after the Emperor’s death.
It had seemed particularly timely, given the rise of the Scorpion Clan Champion to the regency, but
Chiari’s subsequent interviews with the servants had only complicated the matter. Few of them had
known Sōtatsu before being reassigned to the palace, and many had previously worked in distant
Lion or Phoenix households. Even the most conspicuous ones, who had served Scorpion samurai in
the past, she had been unable to catch in subterfuge when she had monitored them. If Sōtatsu had
installed Scorpion spies in the Imperial Palace, he had done so with remarkable effectiveness.
And if he had not... why did he have business with Chiari?

759
 She found him awaiting her on a cold evening at her refuge, the House of the Golden Willow.
She should have suspected that the Scorpion would try to find out what she, a Kitsuki, had learned
of their affairs. Taizō had agreed to share evidence should either of them catch wind of such an
inquiry, yet she had no way to predict when, or how, such a visit might take place. When she arrived
and was informed by the house’s okāsan that a man in a half mask had booked a room for the two
of them to share, she knew that the hare would now need to outwit the fox.
She had been in this room many times before. A low table held a precise flower arrangement
that complemented the mountainscapes along the walls—a familiar touch of Chiari’s home—and a
mat at one end of the room presented with the color of faded gold. A man sat at the head of the table,
comfortably resting on the tatami, smiling with half of his face hidden behind a white and red horned
lacquer mask. A cup of sake rested in front of him, but it was still full, untouched as he entertained
light conversation with the two geisha who sat with him: Chiari’s friend Taizō and his maiko
apprentice Kichihana.
Tucked between the Scorpion’s crimson kimono and jagged black obi was a small pouch
laced with emerald-green lettering and the mon of the Seppun. An omamori trinket of protection.
Was he afraid of being cursed?
“Kitsuki-sama, I was so glad to hear you would be joining us.” Taizō welcomed her with a
small bow from his seat. “Bayushi Sōtatsu-sama was just entertaining us with a story of life at the
palace.”
Sōtatsu turned to greet her, his smile a bit stiff. “Kitsuki Chiari-san. I always find it a joy to
discover a friendly face among those whose duty brings them before the Emperor. I had not been
informed of your recent arrival at the palace, or I would have introduced myself sooner.”
Chiari took a seat at the table beside Kichihana and allowed her to pour a cup of sake. The
four drank together.
“My arrival is perhaps less recent than all that,” Chiari replied, “although I will admit that
the palace is quite expansive. With so many people coming and going, it is a wonder you can keep
track of the staff and their duties.”
“You overestimate the difficulty,” Sōtatsu said. “As the Asako wrote in the early days, ‘the
open mind knows what is needed.’ But you are not unfamiliar with the palace’s staff yourself.”

760
 She hadn’t expected to find him a scholar. Chiari had also read Asako Eichi’s book of ancient
poetry, but as it had been written in an old Rokugani script, she knew of few others who knew of
it... let alone could quote it from memory. She let the comment lie unremarked.
“I find value in the perspectives of all those I meet, regardless of their station,” she said.
“Yet you spend so much time watering the reeds while the delicate willow thirsts.”
While Chiari had recently been mingling with representatives from the Asako and Yasuki to
build a coalition of support for her clan on behalf of Yaruma, her investigations among the servants
were not part of her regular duties, and she had hoped they would continue overlooked until she
learned more. I wonder who tipped him off.
“Even the willow cannot sustain itself alone. It grows so much more magnificent when
surrounded by a bed of comfort,” Chiari said. “After all, I keep coming back to the House of the
Golden Willow for its pleasantries, and here we are drinking sake together. To what do I owe the
pleasantness of your company?”
“Serendipity,” the Scorpion replied. “I have been seeking additional talent with which to
entertain the court, and this house’s reputation for excellent music attracted me.”
“We are honored that you would consider us.” Taizō’s smile was gentle and broad. “After
hearing such amusing stories as yours, who would not leap at the opportunity to be welcomed
somewhere as wondrous as the palace?”
“It certainly carries the beauty of the Heavens,” Chiari agreed.
Kichihana poured more sake for them all—she had cut her hair in Taizō’s style since Chiari
had last seen her and now looked more the part of the male entertainer than ever—as the topic of
discussion moved to less remarkable subjects: an early snow for the season, the poetry readings that
Otomo Mikuru had been holding to entertain the court, and the debacle of an Ikoma courtier who
had mistaken one of the Regent’s servants for his own.
“Given the amount of turnover within the palace lately, I can understand his mistake,” Chiari
observed.
“Were you mentioning to us earlier that you were also in search of new servants for the
palace?” Taizō asked. “I could make some recommendations, should you wish.”
New servants are needed again? I wonder what other casual remarks of his Taizō could
share with me after this.

761
 “A minor concern.” Sōtatsu’s tone was unshaken, yet Chiari detected a slight agitated flutter.
He would pass it off as an effect of the sake, but Chiari had to know more.
“Has some trouble befallen the staff ?”
“Nothing so dire,” Sōtatsu replied. “Only that two of them must be sent away for a time, and
while they are gone, I will need their roles filled.”
“Such changes in the staff must be quite ordinary, I’m sure,” Chiari offered to ease his
concern. This was clearly no routine assignment.
“There is beauty in change,” the Scorpion stated, and he said little more. They ate and drank
until their meal was finished, at which point Taizō and Kichihana took to the mat at the front of the
room to perform for their guests.
“I understand you have been inquiring among the servants in the kitchens.” His voice was
low but clear underneath Taizō and Kichihana’s melodies. “There is nothing they can tell you that I
cannot.”
“In the kitchens?” Chiari replied. “I was merely exchanging suggestions with the cooks to
help make my companions’ reception more comfortable, as I said.”
“You were exchanging nothing, Kitsuki-san,” Sōtatsu said. “From the reports I have read,
you seem awfully curious about who maintains the Emperor’s quarters. You will find that continuing
to lie to me would be unwise.”
If he knew the exact topics she had been inquiring about—perhaps even the exact questions
she had asked—then whoever was informing him was close to the kitchen staff. Perhaps even among
them.
“I see,” Chiari replied. She could not tell him the truth, of course—if he was willing to spend
the evening quietly intimidating her to discourage her inquiries, then she could not run the risk that
he would be equally willing to use force to end her investigation. “Very well. You are correct that I
have been interested in the Emperor’s study, but I did not wish to raise attention to it unduly. You
see, several days ago I was passing by in the evening and thought I heard the sound of a quiet
argument within. I waited in the hallway to see if anyone would emerge, but no one ever did. I only
wished to confirm whether I could have truly heard people within, when I understand that room has
not been used since the Regent took up his sacred duty.”
“Surely this could have been answered much more simply had you taken it up with me, or
even your lord, Yaruma.”

762
 “As surely someone of your administrative position understands, my lord has many duties
that call upon him, especially in these trying times. To burden him with conjecture would be
imprudent, not to mention a poor reflection of my own courage and sincerity.”
“You may uphold your virtues, Kitsuki-san,” Sōtatsu hissed. “But you would do well to
remember your duty to the Hantei comes before all else. Let the servants do their job, and focus on
doing your own. Do not concern yourself with imagined whispers.”
“I promise I have no intention of interrupting their tasks,” Chiari countered. “I only wish to
ensure that the Emperor’s peace is not undone by conspiracy.”
“Then you should take greater care,” Sōtatsu said. “Your own curiosity can easily be
mistaken as conspiracy.”
“Should I be concerned about being ‘sent away,’ as with the two most recent missing
servants?”
“Those servants have been given a prestigious assignment.” So they were not murdered,
then, as the servants who had attended the Emperor’s study directly had been. “I would be more
concerned with the gossip of the court if I were you. Ambassadors unused to the rigors of the palace
can find their fortunes change overnight.”
“Is that not why we must be so vigilant in the defense of the Throne? I would hate for a
deception to unravel the late Hantei’s wishes.” If Sōtatsu had any direct connection to Shoju, she
assumed he could be assuaged by an appeal to Shoju’s legitimacy.
“It is unfortunate that so many seem to wish to do so. It is why the treasures of the Throne
must be kept safe until Crown Prince Daisetsu is safely returned.”
Ah. Had the servants’ prestigious assignment been to safeguard the Emperor’s sword? She
could think of no other reason why he might be mentioning the treasures of the Throne now, in this
context.
“I can only hope that the prince returns quickly to claim his birthright so that all of this
suspicion can be put to rest. As you said, it would have been wiser for me to bring my concerns to
you directly than to ask among the servants. Should I observe anything unusual in the future, I will
be sure to do so.”
“That would be wise.” Perhaps Sōtatsu believed he had concealed the pride in his voice, but
Chiari could hear its subtle inflection. Let him believe that he had caught her in the act. She would
play along and end her questioning, for now.

763
 The performance ended, and with great praise for the performers, Chiari acted the part of
humble deference and apologized for her early departure. “Thank you both for your wonderful
performances, and thank you, Bayushi-sama, for your words of wisdom.” Before she left, she made
a point to catch Taizō’s eye and received a discreet nod in response. With a gentle but swift retreat,
she paid the mother of the house and returned to the evening streets of Otosan Uchi.
She did not go far, however. Slipping around the side of the building, she busied herself with
making scattered observations and hypotheses in a book she kept with her for this purpose until
Sōtatsu appeared only half an hour later. As he scanned his surroundings for prying eyes, she
retreated into the shadows beneath the wooden walls and waited. His suspicions were warranted, so
she could afford him no chance of discovering her. When she poked her head around the corner
several minutes later, he was gone.
She slipped back into the geisha house and returned to the room they had been entertained
in. Only Taizō awaited her.
“Did he share anything after I left?” Chiari asked.
“Only this,” Taizō replied, producing an unfolded paper. “It is his name and an address
where messages can be left for him at a teahouse at the southern edge of the city.”
Chiari examined it. “A written invitation to leave written correspondence,” she mused. “And
he knew I had been inquiring after the newest member of the kitchen staff.”
“What meaning lies with his need to replace two servants?” Taizō asked. “He mentioned it
offhandedly when introducing himself to us but did not seem keen on the topic with you. Is this the
same situation as the servants you are investigating?”
“I have my suspicions, but he could have been lying. I must be certain before I craft my
report to my lord. Unfortunately, it seems my investigation has been less secretive than I had hoped,
so I fear I cannot continue on my own.”
Taizō raised an eyebrow when she looked up to him expectantly. “That depends entirely on
what you’re looking for, Chiari-san.”
“Based on how he asked you to get in touch with him, it seems that he is used to writing to
and receiving messages from the people he meets with. And if he gets his servants’ reports in writing
as well, as he alluded to, I suspect he receives many reports from people left at many different
locations. None of the servants I questioned had reason to be Scorpion spies, but of course that’s

764
because his spies were already in the palace. If he knew through the kitchen staff, then it is likely
that his spies are among those servants, and their reports are left somewhere within the kitchens.”
If she could corroborate what he had implied—that Kunshu, the ancestral sword of the
Hantei, had been sent away from the Imperial Palace for safekeeping—then the Regent had reason
to believe what she had suspected when she had drawn the sword not two weeks before, and he was
hiding it from the rest of the Empire.
“I need you to pose as a servant—as one of his spies—for a few days and find me something
significant among their reports.”

“Fortunately for us both, my friend is as good an actor as he is a musician, and the Scorpion spies
did not question an addition to their ranks,” Chiari explained to the Ruby Champion. “He monitored
the palace kitchens for three days before finding something quite unexpected—a letter sent from
Yogo Junzo to Lord Bayushi, which you now hold.”
Kitsuki Yaruma handed the scroll to Agasha Sumiko. She read it over briefly, then pondered
it for some time. “Junzo writes of dark portents and spiritual disturbance, which is the purview of
the Yogo. It is not dissimilar to the urgings of the Isawa, who see imbalance in every omen. Yet I
assume that is not the message you wish to show me, for you have circled several kanji throughout
the letter.”
“He would not write of it openly,” Chiari explained, “although his portents are part of his
message. When Bayushi Sōtatsu spoke to me of keeping safe ‘the treasures of the Throne’ and of
sending the palace’s servants away with an honorable—but secretive—assignment, he was telling
the truth. This task was the safekeeping of Kunshu, a task that was secretly entrusted to Yogo Junzo
by Lord Bayushi himself.
“But even that task remains unspecified, for Yogo Junzo writes only vaguely of it in his
letter. It was not until I considered Bayushi Sōtatsu’s mention of a quote from Asako Eichi, a poet
and philosopher from the second century, that I recognized certain characters used in the letter as
being ones shared with an archaic script. This would not be quite so out of place were they the only
characters that had such a historical connection. Having studied much ancient poetry myself, I was
able to put them together using their old meanings. When read in that context, they say, ‘A curse of
treason upon the blade of the Hantei.’”

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 Agasha Sumiko set the letter down before her. As she met Chiari’s level gaze, the
investigator noticed creases of concern that had intruded upon her expression. “That is quite the
conclusion.”
“I have one further piece of evidence that should, unfortunately, dispel any doubt. I left it
with Kitsuki Yaruma-sama some weeks ago, as a precaution, when I first felt something was wrong.
But these words, hidden within Yogo Junzo’s message, confirm what I witnessed myself.”
Chiari turned to Yaruma. “Do you still have the poem I wrote for you?”
“I had a suspicion this would matter today, of all days,” Yaruma replied. He withdrew a
small scrap of paper, the detritus of some cast-aside missive sent by a member of an Imperial family,
upon whose empty space several lines had been written in small, neat text. She had instructed him
to not share it or act on it unless something were to happen to her, for her investigation was not yet
complete and her instinct alone could not be trusted. She was glad he had brought it along and
allowed Agasha Sumiko to read it silently before continuing.

A sacred star falls

Beneath the hand of honor
Unseen amidst the cherry blossoms and
The blooming chrysanthemums.
Its portentous meaning
Awaits a discerning eye
And an unyielding resolve.

“This poem is my testimony from three weeks ago, when I disgraced myself by breaching
the sanctity of the Emperor’s study and observed its pristine cleanliness. It was as if the entire study
had been made new, without the weathering of the Emperor’s many meditations. I looked upon the
twin swords Kunshu and Shori and saw, hidden within the folds of Shori’s handle, a dried stain of
blood that should not have been there. If you inspect it now, you too will find it. It compelled me to
draw the Emperor’s blade and experience a horrible darkness—a ‘miasma of despair’—which I now
believe Yogo Junzo has also witnessed.”
She could still feel the weight of nothingness within that moment. Even the memory of it
was an anathema to joy.

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 Why am I even sharing this with these lordly samurai? They will never believe me. She was
an investigator in pursuit of truth, and it had been little more than a momentary terror in her mind.
But there was no other explanation. She had to say it.
“Only one thing could cause a curse to befall such a sacred sword: the murder of the
Emperor.”
Agasha Sumiko did not gasp, but her next breath was sharp. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you
accusing Lord Bayushi of regicide?”
The emptiness in Chiari’s stomach grew, and for a moment she feared that her tension would
render her speechless. She took a deep breath.
“Yes. Based on the curse that has befallen Kunshu, the blood that has stained Shori’s hilt,
and the regency’s intent to keep this secret hidden, there is no explanation except that Bayushi Shoju
has murdered the Emperor and taken his throne.”
Silence filled the room. The remnants of Yaruma’s tea had gone cold. Mirumoto Hitomi’s
left hand instinctively clenched the handle of her katana. But they all served the Ruby Champion.
What would Agasha Sumiko do?

767
The map showed Kyūden Kakita and its surroundings, graced with small scattered sketches of
flowers, trees, and animals. To most observers they would be unimportant, the work of a Crane
cartographer indulging in a moment of amusement. Daidoji Uji studied it closely, mentally
separating the sketches that coded important information from the ones designed to be a distraction.
Maps could be stolen, and Uji had no intention of sharing his deep knowledge of his clan’s fortresses
with anyone else.
Slowly he traced out the battle where the Crane had taken the Lion palisades but failed to
win the gates of Kyūden Kakita. Then he traced out the next battle, where he and his soldiers had
again failed to win the gates. The one after that, using flaming arrows to divide the Lion’s attention
between defense and firefighting—close again, but still a failure. One by one Uji went through the
list of battles, recalling the tactics used by both sides. The problem was a simple one: Kyūden Kakita
had been built to be defensible against a large force, Matsu Tsuko’s generals were experienced
commanders, and Tsuko had enough soldiers to properly garrison the castle. Uji had the knowledge
necessary to negate the castle’s advantages, but he had nowhere near the troops needed to do it and
no hope of getting reinforcements.
He straightened up from the map and took three deep, grounding breaths.
There was no need for an Asahina to divine the future for him. Autumn was deepening into
winter. Soon he would have to pull his armies back to winter quarters or see them die of starvation
and exposure in the field. Pulling back would give the Lion all the opportunity they needed to
reinforce their position and prepare for the spring. And when spring came, they would march. The

768
Crane Clan was already incredibly fragile; it could not survive having an enemy entrenched in its
heart.
Uji grimaced and arose from the map table. His effective options had narrowed down to only
two: he had to commit himself or accept the consequences of leaving Kyūden Kakita in enemy
hands. In the corner of his tent was a travel shrine dedicated to Doji Hayaku, the founder of the
Daidoji family. It was beautifully carved from oak and ivory, and it stood in honor atop a lacquered
box that showed a crane hunting in a marsh. Uji knelt down, lit a stick of incense, and prostrated
himself before the shrine.
When Doji Konishiko had disappeared after her confrontation with the dark god Fu Leng,
Doji Hayaku had not hesitated to imperil himself in a quest to find and recover his older sister. No
one ventured deep into the Shadowlands and returned alive, especially not when they did so alone.
Yet his love for his sister, and his duty to his clan, drove Hayaku onward through untold deadly
perils. Somehow, where the most resolute Hida and the most cunning Hiruma had failed, Doji
Hayaku’s selflessness vanquished the evils of Jigoku, and he returned—muted and scarred, but very
much alive—with his fallen sister’s ancestral blade in hand.
What I must do, I do for the Crane. Just as Doji Hayaku had imperiled himself for his duty,
Daidoji Uji would do the same. My reward will be the safety of the clan, even if I am no longer
welcome in it.
The ashes of the incense had grown cold when Uji raised himself back up. He carefully
picked up the shrine and set it to the side, then removed the top of the lacquered box. Reaching in,
he withdrew a number of tightly wrapped paper scrolls, each containing a fine powder. He returned
the shrine to its place, carried the scrolls to the map table, and nestled them in with the pile of maps.
When he had finished, he called for a courier.

“Tonight, we plan,” Uji told the samurai around the map table. “Tomorrow night, we will act.”
He quietly and quickly outlined what had to be done, then waited for their reactions. Harriers
were trained for battlefield cunning and creativity. These particular Harriers were Uji’s personal
troops, chosen for their deep loyalty to him and to the Crane. In preparation for such a need as now
lay before him, they had been trained in additional techniques not normally taught Crane samurai.
He had prepared them for a plan such as this one, but it would ask much from them, and he was not
foolish enough to think there would be no objections

769
 “Uji-sama,” one of them burst out, “we cannot do this! This is a Crane palace!”
“Silence, fool!” another Harrier hissed, and an angry murmur swept around the table.
“He is only saying what the rest of you are thinking,” Uji said, and silence slammed down
around them. He looked around the circle of faces, and only the man who had objected could meet
his eyes. “It was a Crane castle. It is now a Lion fortress, and we can no longer hold back our hands.
The rest of the clan will suffer if we do not act.”
“It may be as you say, Uji-sama,” one of the other Harriers said, “and yet when the other
Crane lords hear of this, there will be trouble. Kakita Yoshi will especially be disturbed.”
Uji nodded. “I have already sent word to the champion and the council, reporting the matter
to them. However, we cannot wait for a message to return.”
There was a different kind of silence as the group absorbed Uji’s words and began to plan
around them. “What you want done is simple enough,” one of them said, “but we will have only one
chance, and it must not fail. Someone will have to stay behind to take care of any unforeseen
obstacles.”
“Yes,” Uji said. “Someone must stay behind.”
Silence fell a third time, to be broken finally by the one who had objected. “I will stay behind,
Uji-sama,” he said. “If it must be done, let it be done by my hand.”
Uji met his eyes, measuring the determination he saw there. “I will care for your kin as if
they were my own.”

Daidoji Uji had been in the subbasement of Kyūden Kakita once before, but then he had descended
the stairway in the daytime, accompanied by the commander of the Kakita samurai who garrisoned
the castle and an abundance of servants bearing bright lamps. The memory of that time lent a surreal
quality to his current visit.
He stood at the beginning—or the end—of a passageway the Kakita commander had not
known about and, ancestors willing, never would. Before him was a heavy wooden door that looked
oddly tidy in comparison to the cramped, root-infested tunnel behind him. There was no lock on the
door, but a number of bolts held it fast. Uji paused with one hand on a bolt. Only if the bolts were
undone in the proper sequence would the door open. If they were undone in any other sequence, the
ceiling would collapse, killing everyone in this section of the tunnel. He had no fear of triggering a
collapse by accident, but it occurred to him that he could choose to trigger it. He was the leader of

770
the Daidoji; it was his responsibility to keep the lands of the Crane Clan safe. He had failed badly
when Matsu Tsuko had seized Kyūden Kakita. His actions tonight would save the rest of the clan
from the consequences of that failure, even as he committed a greater betrayal on centuries of Kakita
craftsmanship. Should he simply set down his burden and embrace death, the judgement of his
karma would absolve him of what he had already failed to do. Yet the Crane’s future could not be
held against his own life or honor. Just as the first Daidoji had done when faced with darkness, he
would shun the path of cowardice.
The first bolt grated in protest as Uji slid it free. He grimaced a little at the noise and
continued on. The second refused to move until it was oiled and coaxed. One by one he undid them,
and then he pushed the door open and stepped into Kyūden Kakita’s subbasement. Around him
small groups of black-clad Harriers set off down the hallways, each bearing several tight paper
scrolls and small glittering tsangusuri wards. Uji watched them go.
Even well-trained Iron Warriors would find themselves hard-pressed to breach the castle’s
defenses were they to fight Tsuko’s warriors head-on in these basement halls. They had never been
intended for ingress, and the trapped passageway he had opened was only one of many traps
cunningly built by his ancestors. Armor and weapons in these tunnels would only draw attention to
their presence, prompting a greater defense. If he was to defeat Matsu Tsuko, it could only be done
through cunning and secrecy.

A short eternity later, his infiltrators began to trickle back, bearing their dying lights. One Harrier
returned alone, worry plain on her face, and gestured for Uji. A tightening of his brow, barely visible
above his fierce mempō in the darkness, was all he allowed as he wordlessly followed her down the
corridor and into the castle’s basements. Soon they had joined the rest of this Harrier’s team who
were waiting outside an entrance to a larder, one that was only infrequently accessed from the castle
above.
He immediately saw what the problem was. Lamplight spilled around the corner, and voices
echoed in the damp air. Following a gesture from one of his Harriers, Uji inched forward until he
could see a little way into the room. A rough mat had been placed on the floor, and six people sat
around it, laughing and chattering in Lion accents. A ridiculous story resounded through the room
of a frog who had purloined the castellan’s keys. Uji turned to his chief Harrier with languid
expectation. She nodded back, a sour expression on her face.

771
 Using the battlefield hand gestures common to Harriers, he indicated the room and its
inhabitants. Is this room your target?
Yes, she signaled back.
Of course it was. Harriers were capable of dealing with the occasional overzealous sentry or
unfortunate servant, but six Lion samurai were not going to die quietly. He could possibly take them
by surprise, especially if they were drunk on sake. It would take only a moment to leap across the
room, his swords drawn, and cut them down in a flash of steel and blood. Far greater numbers of
Lion warriors had fallen before him on the battlefield, and he knew these tunnels better than they
ever could. His hand gripped the hilt of his wakizashi as he gauged the distance, ready to draw with
the swift intake of breath.
Yet should any of them stand up to him, the sound of battle might alert the rest of the castle
to his Harriers’ presence. He could not know if these soldiers who had set up a private hideaway
beneath the castle had done so with their lords’ permission, and whether the rest of Matsu Tsuko’s
army was prepared to defend against an incursion from beneath. If they did, it would be quick work
for her soldiers to rout Uji and his Harriers and foil their stratagem. They had come too poorly
armored for a direct confrontation.
Risk too great. Scout your auxiliary target, he signaled. If it is clear of Lion, deploy.
She nodded, and then she and her unit hurried off.
When it was done, Uji and the Harriers retreated through the passageway in which they had
entered. Only one warrior remained at the entrance as Uji followed behind the Harriers. They had
said their goodbyes when the night was still young, so there was nothing left for Uji to do except to
give the order. The Harrier bowed and turned to go. He would see to it that the plan’s final act would
not fail.
For a moment, Uji wondered if he would soon be following in this man’s footsteps. He was
now knowingly walking to his own destruction, potentially sacrificing as much as his family’s
reputation in the defense of his clan. Would Uji have the courage to stay as honorable as this man
had been when confronted with the pain and anger he knew would come of this night?
If it were appropriate, he would readily take this man’s place and accept his fate. Yet
someone would need to justify his actions to Lady Hotaru—or Lord Kuwanan—when they learned
what had befallen. He could not ask that of any of his samurai.

772
 Before the Harrier was out of reach, Uji reached up and touched him on the shoulder, where
a samurai usually wore the mon of his family. The warrior looked back, and Uji bowed his head in
thanks. Silently, both turned to their respective duties and were gone.

The night was moonless, but the stars gave more than enough light to see Kyūden Kakita by. The
palace soared high above the surrounding countryside, elegant, beautiful, and impervious to all
attempts to retake it. Daidoji Uji had returned to the camp and was standing beside one of his
sentries, a woman who had been pacing the palisade since he had begun his operation. The night
trembled with ominous potential, which had reached even this loyal warrior who had no knowledge
yet of what Uji had done.
Had she been the one to propose this plan, would he have accepted it? Or would he have,
perhaps rightfully, punished her for suggesting such a disgraceful tactic? His duty to defend the
Crane was clear, and he had saved countless lives through subterfuge and deception in the past. He
had studied the tools and tactics of gaijin warriors for this express purpose: to achieve victory where
ordinary tactics could not.
Unlike the foes who now garrisoned Kyūden Kakita, the Crane were not so precious as their
history. An ending was worthy of celebration, for what was to come would only surpass its
predecessors in beauty and elegance. The daimyō of the Daidoji would do what he must, that the
future of his clan could flourish.
A sudden light flickered through the night air, and the sentry stifled a cry of alarm beside
him. Daidoji Uji did not move.
Kyūden Kakita glowed with fiery red light that shone from every window. The sentry stared
at it gape-jawed, then staggered back as a roar of sound rolled over her. When she regained her
balance, her face was a mask of horror. The palace walls crumbled away, burning fragments of stone
and wood collapsing in on themselves. One section of wall, above where the Lion samurai had
impeded the infiltration, remained standing, fragments of floor jutting lopsided into the air.
The peace of the night was gone. Uji forced himself to remain still as, one by one, the sentries
became aware of the destruction. It took several moments for Uji to realize that the sentry beside
him was screaming up at the sky, tears flowing out of her eyes. From further on, he could hear a
swell of noise from the camp, as awakened samurai scrambled out of their tents and beheld the
burning ghost of the once-beautiful palace of the Kakita family. Many of them undoubtedly had

773
lived or trained among the Kakita or were close with those who had done so. Hundreds of years of
dedication, of beauty, all gone in an instant. And when Kakita Yoshi learned of the fate of his wife,
held hostage within the now-ruined walls, there would be no peace among the daimyō of the Crane.
But if it also meant the death of Matsu Tsuko, of her generals Kitsu Motso and Akodo
Zentarō and others, then perhaps the Crane could finally be safe. He had fulfilled his duty to defend
the Crane.
In the dying light of an explosion, Daidoji Uji lowered his head and privately wept.

774
Somewhere in the Shadowlands

Kuni Yori approached the dispatched oni’s remains, stepping much closer to them than his
apprentice had. Wisps of smoke still wormed out from the oni’s mottled flesh, rising from where
the jade light had touched it. Shattered pieces of cream-colored jade glittered around the corpse, like
condensation droplets. He’d expected to have to follow up with a prayer of his own, perhaps even
sacrificing one of his precious fingers of jade as an offering. But Tadaka’s lone Jade Strike had been
more than enough to overcome the creature.
I’ve been underestimating him. When Tadaka had first called the kami to appear in jade light
before him, Yori had found his technique needlessly showy, instructing him instead on the Kuni’s
simpler method. He’d expected resistance—the Isawa could be so close minded—but Tadaka had
proved more compromising than his kin. Now he had mastered it.
Don’t praise him too much. He won’t respect you.
“If it had lived, we could have questioned it,” Yori remarked. “Still, well done.”
Tadaka could not look Yori in the face. With sad reverence he returned the borrowed item:
a small hairbrush, sculpted from whalebone.
It had been in Yori’s family for generations, carved by one of his ancestors. In the passing
decades, the comb had stirred, the spirit inside spontaneously awakening to sentience. It had become
a living item, a nemuranai.
Yori rubbed his thumb over the smooth, petrified bone. The kami inside, the spirit of the
comb, was gone. Nemuranai no more. Lifeless.

775
 Tadaka bowed his head, ashamed. “The spirit within accepted my offering but fled
immediately after. I am sorry, teacher. I can never make it up to you.”
It took hundreds of years to create a nemuranai. An item had to be cared for, used, protected,
cherished, passed down for generations, each decade increasing its awareness, its power. Sometimes
it never happened. And now this, a precious treasure of his family, was mundane. Lost forever.
He tossed it aside. “It served its purpose.”
Tadaka blinked in disbelief. A not-unexpected reaction. Despite his time among the Kuni,
Tadaka had still formed attachments to objects, treating his tools as “sacred.” It was all that slowed
him down: all this ceremony, this useless deference. He had proved an apt pupil, but ultimately he
was still an Isawa.
“The nemuranai spirit knew this place would corrupt it if it remained,” Yori explained.
“Which makes it smarter than humans. Well,” he added, “smarter than us, anyway.”
The wind tugged at Tadaka’s cloth mask. “That is why the Kuni rely on nemuranai,” he
realized. “In the Shadowlands, one cannot ensure that the kami answering one’s prayers isn’t
Tainted.”
“And we rely on jade offerings because kansen do not accept them.” Yori knelt by the oni,
taking care not to touch the wretched thing. “Of course by offering only jade, one risks no kami
answering at all.”
“All those years,” Tadaka murmured, “lost in one invocation.”
That was the way of things. Mortal victories were small and costly. Centuries of losses had
taught this to the Kuni. He could not expect Tadaka to comprehend it all at once.
But he would. In time.
Yori inspected the corpse. He was careful not to breathe too deeply, lest he inhale its fading
spirit. That was how Witch Hunters became possessed. The oni’s three bulbous eyes stared blankly,
its trio of tongues rolling limp from its soundless mouth.
“Look at its features. Three eyes. Three tongues.” He nodded. “This is an oni lord’s spawn.
Akuma no Oni’s.”
Tadaka swallowed. “I didn’t realize it had spawn remaining.”
Interesting. Tadaka had seen worse than this, and he never flinched. But now he seemed
shaken, pale even. Why did this creature, even dead, gave him pause?

776
 The Empire had long forgotten, but the Kuni remembered that an Elemental Master had
created the oni lord. Isawa Akuma’s name was quite strong; when he gave it to the oni, he created
one of the most powerful beings in the Shadowlands. The Kaiu Wall hadn’t been completed in those
days. It had cost much to finally kill the creature.
Akuma was a shame of the Isawa, he realized. Yes, that would explain Tadaka’s trepidation.
I cannot afford a shaken companion, he thought. He would have to reassure Tadaka that his
family’s shame was unimportant, at least right now. Perhaps Tadaka felt it was a burden he had to
conceal, a curse he carried alone. But time had shown Yori that curses could also be blessings, if
one looked closely enough.
Beyond, shadows gathered in the stony gulch. The sky was bleeding. It would be night soon.
“The Kuni family has existed for over a thousand years,” he said. “There have been more
Kuni daimyō than Hantei emperors.” He glanced at his pupil. “How many do you guess succumbed
to evil?”
Tadaka hesitated. “Perhaps a handful,” he finally risked. “Although far more resisted, I am
sure.”
“No, Tadaka-sama. Nearly all became Tainted, in the end.”
Tadaka said nothing. He only stared.
“Some avoided that fate, but they are dwarfed by those who succumbed. When you fight the
darkness, it is inevitable. What place is it then for the Kuni to judge the shame of other families?”
“Why tell me this?” Tadaka whispered. “That secret could destroy the Kuni.”
He was a good student. He listened. He learned. And he also taught, without knowing it.
“Perhaps I have come to think of you as one of us,” Yori replied as he set fire to the corpse.
It burned at his feet as the sky grew darker.
“He could have been a hero,” he whispered, trusting the wind to carry his words to Tadaka’s
ears. “If his priorities had been in order, had he learned something, Isawa Akuma would be
remembered a hero, not a villain.”
Tadaka watched the oni burn. He didn’t reply.

Asako Tsuki startled awake. Her neck felt like an unyielding rod from lying on the rocks. When had
she fallen asleep? She cursed herself for her lack of vigilance. How long had she lain there prone,
with all the dangers of the Shadowlands lurking around her?

777
 She looked to the sky before remembering that she couldn’t trust the sun’s position to tell
the time. It was darkening, the sun transitioning to a sliver of moon, like a wide eye closing.
How many days had it been? How many weeks?
She stiffened at the thud of something crashing into the sheltered copse. But she relaxed
when she saw the newcomer’s digitigrade feet, the long tail thumping on the ground behind. Tsuki
recognized her own outer coat draped around the being’s thin shoulders. She was wearing it wrong,
like a cloak or a cape. The being hunched over a flimsy basket of scavenged prizes, whiskers
twitching before her bulbous brown eyes and fur-covered triangular face.
“Are you awoked?” came her scratchy, soft voice.
“Awake,” Tsuki corrected, rising. “And I am now.”
During Tsuki’s pampered life of blissful ignorance on the right side of the Wall, the only
thing she had known about the nezumi was that they were ratlike beings, that they could not be
Tainted, and that they collected things. The sum of this knowledge had come from two feet of dusty
scroll, a few lines of text with an illustration of a rat walking on its hind legs and wearing a kimono.
In the last few weeks, she’d learned more about nezumi than she’d ever thought possible.
The ratling emptied her basket. “We were lucky. I gathered good food today.” Her whiskers
twitched. “That’s the right word? Food?”
“Yes,” Tsuki replied, dusting off her ruined silks. “Your Rokugani is coming along well.”
“Better than your Nezumi!”
Tsuki laughed. She couldn’t argue with that. The nezumi constantly corrected her attempts,
suggesting that she “release the right musk” alongside each syllable. A language modified by scents
was unlike anything Tsuki could have imagined. Such sophistication fascinated her: knowledge and
meanings locked behind a puzzle she could never fully solve.
The ratling looked much better than she had weeks ago: bloodied and weak, a daggerlike
tooth implanted in her side. Tsuki hadn’t expected her to survive. When she was well again, she had
introduced herself as “Spike-in-the-Gut.” Tsuki had shorted it to a single Rokugani word: “Spike.”
The nezumi puffed with pride every time Tsuki used it.
“Did you make another one?” Spike’s teeth scraped together with a faint chattering sound:
bruxing, which Tsuki had gradually learned was equivalent to blushing, an involuntary reaction to
specific emotions.

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 Tsuki knew what she wanted. From within the scavenged satchel Spike had given her, she
withdrew one of her daily accomplishments: a plain sheet of paper, folded into the shape of a bird
with wings unfurled and a fanlike tail.
Spike’s glossy eyes glittered. She cradled the origami delicately, as if it would shatter at the
slightest pressure.
“Tug the tail a bit,” Tsuki advised.
The motion rippled across the folded paper, causing the wings to twitch. Tsuki frowned; it
was supposed to flap its wings, but the folds were not crisp enough.
Spike gasped even so. “It’s magic,” she breathed, bruxing again.
Spike always returned with little bits and things. Pieces of torn paper, little wooden boxes,
discarded whetstones. Tsuki knew the paper had to have been recently made. Greatest among a
librarian’s duties was to replicate all the scrolls and books, which were in a constant state of decay.
Parchment lasted longer, being made of animal hide, second only to the bamboo scroll, which was
nothing more than woven slats. But paper dried into brittle flakes within a few generations, or broke
down into moldy pulp in wet climates. How Spike had found relatively intact mulberry paper in the
Shadowlands, she couldn’t say.
But she was grateful for every sheet. It was something to do besides stumble around their
language barrier and walk north, something to think about other than the twitching shadows around
every innocent-looking shrub, or the growing holes in her socks.
Or the nezumi. Spike seemed immune to the surroundings, in every sense. Kansen paid her
no mind. She could even drink the suspect water. Tsuki had wondered if her proximity to the nezumi
was the only thing that was keeping the dangers at bay. In every sense that mattered, Spike was her
candle against the shadows.
Were circumstances different, Tsuki would have liked to study Spike’s people, to understand
how they thrived in such a hostile place. She wanted to know the culture of a people so different
from humans. What did they value? What were their achievements? What were their systems of
math, philosophy, and art? Were they nomadic? Did they have villages? What stories did they tell
their pups, and how did they preserve their identity in a place where nothing good could grow? She
wanted to learn their insights, anything from their unique perspective that could enrich her
understanding. A moldy scroll did not do them justice. They were wonderful. She wanted to know
everything.

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 But first she’d need to reach the Plains above Evil and return to Rokugan. With every bloody
dawn, that possibility seemed more distant.
“These little things still amuse you?” Tsuki asked. This had to be the eighth origami she’d
made for her since they met.
Spike beamed. Her eyes bulged out of their sockets. “Of course! They are my treasures!”
Tsuki’s heart swelled. No one back home had ever valued her clumsy attempts at origami.
In fact, she couldn’t think of a single time she’d been so highly praised.
Treasures. Surely Spike had used the wrong word. They couldn’t possibly be that
meaningful to her.
Spike stoked the campfire as Tsuki separated the basket’s contents to make dinner.
Scavenged mushrooms, stiff onion-looking grasses, a handful of acorns, something that was
probably a rock—
Her stomach growled. She’d lost a lot of weight, her kimono hanging more loosely each day.
Some nights her stomach felt like it was on fire. But she could only eat whatever Spike scavenged.
Nothing else could be trusted.
The onions usually weren’t that bad. “Good find today.”
“I had a close call just to get it, too. I was nearly caught!”
“Bakemono?” Tsuki asked. She hoped nothing bigger. She couldn’t imagine life out here
without her lone ally, and they had no way to fight something larger than a goblin.
“An oni, I think. But luckily the zakseker dispatched it. It never even noticed me.”
“Zakseker?” A nezumi word. Spike had never spoken it before.
“Zakseker. They had clothes kinda like yours.”
Clothes like mine?
A mushroom fell from her limp hand.
“Were they humans?” she asked softly. “Like me?”
She knew better than to hope. They were too far from the Wall. Not even Crab patrols, like
the one that had given up pursuing her, would venture this far into the Shadowlands.
But now a tiny spark danced inside her chest, a little flame that she desperately needed to
keep lit, so it would cast its tiny light.
“They were zakseker,” Spike insisted. Then, another nod. “But yes, humans.”

780
 She could have embraced the ratling. Humans. Her own kind. She fell to her knees. Thank
the Fortunes! Ten thousand praises to every Fortune!
Human beings. They would have food, shelter...
And a dungeon back at the Wall, if they were Crab. They were probably Crab, right? Who
else would they be?
Even if they were Crab, she’d have to risk finding them. It was her only chance. She could
explain, make them understand. She had to try.
“Can you take me to them?” she asked. “Spike, which way did they go?”
A nezumi’s face was unlike a human’s. Nezumi didn’t make the same expressions; their
anatomy was too different. But the weeks had taught her to how to read Spike’s body language. She
was hesitating. Holding back.
“Too dangerous,” Spike finally said. She poked the fire. “Forget I said anything.”
Just as suddenly as it had opened, Tsuki felt a door closing. The little flame sputtered in her
chest. Each moment could take them farther away. She had to find them! It was her only chance.
Spike was shaking. A musty odor arose from her matted fur. Was it fear? She had stridden
so confidently among countless dangers. Was she really afraid of a few humans?
“Are they undead?” She searched for words. “Not-alive?”
“Forget them.” More poking. “Zakseker are dangerous. Can’t trust them. Can’t take the
chance.”
She’s protecting me, Tsuki realized. Spike probably thought Tsuki was delusional.
And why wouldn’t she think that? It could be a trick. The Shadowlands knew the human
heart. It sensed desires and presented them as traps. Even if the zakseker appeared human, that didn’t
mean they were. And logically, there shouldn’t be any people out here. Distrusting the Shadowlands,
avoiding contact—that was how nezumi survived. Tsuki knew that. She’d barely survived that
lesson.
But didn’t it feel like the tiny flame of hope within her had burst into a bonfire? Didn’t it
feel like her last, desperate chance? Wasn’t she allowed to be a little delusional, all things
considered?
Tsuki sat directly in front of the nezumi. She didn’t move until Spike raised her murine face,
and their eyes met.

781
 “Spike, I’m going to die out here. This place will take more than just my life. It will take my
very soul. If there are humans nearby who can get me back...”
Her little office with the window facing the sea. Her little desk with the unfinished book on
the back shelf. The salty smell of scrolls and the sea. Home. Fading away.
She let her tears fall openly. Among her people, such an open display would have shamed
her. But tears were one of the few things humans and nezumi had in common. She had to let them
show, to be understood, beyond all doubt. “Please, Spike. This might be my only chance to go
home.”
“Home,” Spike whispered. A Rokugani word.
And then, softly, she nodded. “Okay.”
Tsuki grinned around a new wave of tears. Home. She was going home.
“I’ll take you to them.” Spike clasped her shoulder. Her eyes bulged with urgency. “But be
ready to run.”

The zakseker, as Spike had called them, had their own camp set near the edge of a ravine. They’d
surrounded it with a hemp curtain, a jinmaku, embroidered with the Crab Clan mon. It shielded them
from the wind and dust while hiding their numbers. Clever.
There was probably an entire scouting party behind that curtain. They might still be looking
for her. Only weeks ago, she had been hiding from them. It was really foolish to approach. They’d
probably just kill her, wouldn’t they? Exactly how desperate was she?
Pretty desperate, she decided, and stood.
Spike forced her down again, behind the brush. “Bad idea. Wait. Smell them out.”
“I can’t.” She had to make Spike understand. “I have to risk it.”
“Why?” Spike insisted. “I can still take you north around the Wall. It’s only a month or two.”
“I won’t last a month or two.”
Spike chittered and squeezed her hand. “And I can’t protect you from them.”
Guilt pricked her heart. This nezumi was the only reason she’d made it this far. She owed
Spike her life. Maybe even her soul. Could she really just walk away?
There was no helping it. Neither could survive in the world of the other. She rose from the
brush, swallowing her regret. “Then go, before they see you.”
A long pause.

782
 “Goodbye,” Spike whispered. “Live a long time.”
Her whip-tail lashed the brush. She was gone.
Tsuki blinked wetness from her eyes. It stung more than she had expected. But it was too
late to take it back now.
Tsuki walked into the open, eyes on the curtains as she approached. She licked her dry lips.
“Hello?” she called out, voice shaking.
The wind rippled the curtain and the mon of the Crab.
“I am Asako Tsuki,” she continued, risking another step. “I am lost, but untainted. May I
approach?”
Nothing.
And then, the curtain parted.
She blinked. Now she knew it was a Shadowlands trick. What else could explain the man
who stepped out from the jinmaku? The wind tugged the orange and red robes of the Phoenix around
his broad shoulders, and an unusual cloth beneath his cone-shaped hat obscured his lower face. His
heraldry bore not only the symbol of the Isawa family, but also the silver crest of the Master of
Earth.
Impossible. Laughably transparent. An obvious trap, guileless and—
“Azunami’s niece?” He tilted his head just so. Jade beads glinted in a string around his thick
arm. “What is a librarian doing in the middle of the Shadowlands?”
It wasn’t a trap. It was him. Isawa Tadaka, the Master of Earth.
Laughter poured out like a river, so strong that she shook, nearly falling to her knees. Even
as he stared, regarding her as though she’d lost her mind, she laughed until tears streamed down her
face. Now she understood why the Fortunes had led her here.
“Honored Master, I have found you at last! I...”
She was filthy. She rubbed her cheek and pulled away a muddy palm. Finally she was
properly meeting the new Master of Earth, and she was in this embarrassing state!
Tadaka kept his distance. He watched her with testing, calm eyes that she tried not to notice
were gorgeous.
And of course I must present myself as a dirt-caked mule.
“Isawa-sama, excuse my...err...appearance. I carry a message for you, from our homeland.”

783
 His brow furrowed. “I must say, Tsuki-san, you are perhaps the most dedicated messenger
I’ve ever met.”
She gave a tired smile. “As you say, honored Master.”
The curtain parted. A man stepped out.
Tsuki froze at his Kabuki-painted face, his long mustache, and the symbol of the Kuni family
displayed on his robes. “An unexpected guest,” he remarked, cocking a brow.
The mahō scrolls she’d found in his lab. The tsukai-knife. The experiments. They all came
to her in a rush.
And now there he was.
“Kuni-sama,” she managed, remembering to bow. “What an ...unexpected honor.”
It had been Kuni Yori whom Spike was afraid of. Any nezumi would know a mahō-tsukai
when they saw one. Was that what zakseker meant?
She breathed calmly as she rose. She couldn’t reveal what she knew. Wait until you’re alone
with Tadaka, she thought. Then she’d reveal Yori for what he was.
“You said you had a message?” Tadaka asked.
Her hand flinched toward her obi. Nothing there. She didn’t have the scroll anymore, did
she? “Ah, it seems I ...misplaced it, but I know its contents. It was from Shiba Tsukune-ue.”
“Tsukune?” Tadaka’s eyes flickered. “What happened?”
She glanced at Yori. He was watching. Ever so closely.
“You can speak freely,” Tadaka said. “The Kuni daimyō is a friend of the Isawa.”
She bit her tongue. Tadaka didn’t know? How could that be? Couldn’t the Masters sense the
imbalance of a mahō-tsukai?
She cleared her throat. “It is about Master Ujina. He is gone.”
Tadaka held very still for a long while. “How?” he finally uttered.
“Vanished. We do not know more than that.” She lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Tadaka-
sama .”
“My condolences,” said Yori.
The Master of Void was Tadaka’s father. Before all this, Tsuki had practiced how she would
tell him, delivering the news to her own reflection. Now, tired as she was, she wondered if she’d
been too blunt. But her exhaustion pushed away any other emotion.
They stood there in silence.

784
 “So the council must choose another Master,” Tadaka deduced, voice wavering only slightly.
“My sister will replace him. Her connection to the Void was greater even than his.”
“She has declined. As an Akodo, she cannot serve both clans.” Tsuki bowed low. “The
council will reconvene soon. They need the Master of Earth.” She paused, remembering the specific
words she had to use. “Tsukune-ue needs you.”
He faltered at her name. Tsuki pretended not to notice.
So the rumors were true, then.
“Tadaka-sama,” Yori said, “if your clan needs you, then perhaps you should return to it.”
And leave you to what, sorcerer? Tsuki bit her tongue.
Tadaka turned away. “She does not need me,” he whispered. “Not anymore.” He
straightened with new resolve. “This is more important. The council can choose without me.” He
turned to Tsuki. “Tell them—”
“No,” she whispered. “You are going home.”
Stunned silence. She’d even surprised herself. Yet it felt good to say. Startlingly so.
Yori glanced at Tadaka. “Are Phoenix usually so disobedient?”
She tried not to glare, but felt herself slip. She couldn’t bring herself to respect a man who
dabbled in evil while pretending to champion righteousness.
Tadaka drew a patient breath. “I know you are stressed, Tsuki-san. But remember who you
speak to.”
A reminder. A threat. She had been insubordinate. He was the Master of Earth, and she, a
pebble.
But, she realized, she didn’t care.
“Punish me,” she said. “I accept any judgment for my tone. But I will not leave without
you.” She planted herself and looked up at his towering frame. “I endured things to find you, honored
Master. I risked my very soul. A good man gave his life.” Shiba Koetsu. Her poor yōjimbō. She
choked, but pushed past her grief. “I questioned why the Fortunes led me to this evil place. Until
now. They led me to you. How then can I return to the Phoenix empty-handed? If I disappoint
Tsukune-ue, I can never again show my face.”
He was hesitating. She could see him weighing each path, deciding.

785
 “A question, Asako-san,” Yori spoke. “How exactly did you come to be so far from the
Wall? The Crab rarely allow passage into these lands. Surely you must possess a document of my
clan’s blessing?”
She felt like a mouse in a tiger’s gaze.
“So,” he said, when she didn’t reply, “you are alone this far from the Wall, no
documentation, and no proof of this ‘message’ you claim is for Tadaka. Why should he believe
you?”
Yori was a daimyō. Tadaka’s friend. She was...nobody. His word was greater than hers. And
relations between the Asako and Isawa were rocky at best. Even now, she could see the suspicion
flicker in Tadaka’s eyes, an unspoken notion passing between student and teacher...
She tried to stay calm. “Honored Master, I am Phoenix. We both serve the council. Cast
aside my words, and you disgrace us both.”
Please believe me, she thought, trying to speak with her eyes. I am not lying! Yori is not what
he seems! You are camping with a viper!
“I can think of another reason one might be out here alone,” Yori said, hand inching toward
his wakizashi.
A blur, bursting through the brush, crossing faster than Tsuki thought possible. But she knew
who it was, from the moment she heard the crash to the glimpse of the long rat tail.
“Leave her be!” Spike squeaked and sunk her incisors into Yori’s arm.
Tadaka stepped in front, shoving. Tsuki crashed to the ground. Words fell from Tadaka’s
lips. She smelled incense, an offering.
Jade light, pouring from his hands. It painted the clearing in brilliant emerald, flooding both
ratling and shugenja. Faintly, she heard Yori scream.
Tadaka must have mistaken Spike for a goblin or other bakemono. Yet the Breath of the Jade
Dragon would leave nezumi untouched.
Tsuki crawled to her feet as the light died. Tadaka wielded his ceramic scroll cases as he
would the hanbō, one in each hand, ready to fight the ratling off. Spike kicked away from the
groaning Yori, scrambling on all fours, hissing loudly. Tadaka raised his weapons.
“She’s a friend!” Tsuki shouted.
But Tadaka had stopped the moment he realized what Spike was. He lowered his weapons.
Nezumi were allies against the Shadowlands. It wouldn’t do to attack.

786
 But Spike was still hissing. She puffed up beneath her overcoat, halfway between fight and
flight, facing the Kuni daimyō. She growled. “Zakseker.”
Yori grunted as he stood. He was burned where the jade light had touched him.
Wordlessly, he snapped a jade finger from around his neck and clasped it in his hands. He
murmured, eyes closed, feeling. When they opened again, he looked defeated. Smaller. He tossed
the jade trinket at Tsuki’s feet. “A gift,” he said. “It won’t do me any good anymore.”
Tadaka’s eyes widened as Yori smirked. “I told you, my student. It was bound to happen
someday.”

787
Kudaka slowly ran a thumb over her lips as if sealing in the smirk that threatened to emerge as she
watched Yasuki Oguri frown at his cards, rearranging the few in his hand as though doing so might
change what they were. “Any day now, cormorant,” she teased lazily, fanning herself with her own
carefully folded hand.
“In good time,” the young man shot back, his tone uncharacteristically clipped. “How are
you supposed to get a good look at the whole of your hand at once with these cards? They’re far
bigger than any other type I’ve played with.”
“This ain’t hanafuda, you know,” she said, letting the grin slip onto her face. “The Islands
of Spice and Silk do things a little differently. If this is too hard a game, maybe we can—”
“No, no, I have it. Here.” Oguri tossed a bamboo marker onto a pile on the table between
them—Kudaka had suggested they play for fun rather than money, as she was certain that if they
didn’t, before long she’d own half the Yasuki territory. It was fortunate, to his mind, that the Mantis
also shared his family’s penchant for gambling. “I will bet.”
She nodded and tossed in two chips of her own. “I’d gladly bet you whatever food supplies
you mighta got squirreled away somewhere.”
He sighed and shook his head. “No such luck.”
“You sure we shoulda thrown out the stuff what was in the larder?”
Three more chips entered the pile. “It was too risky to keep. Anything in the tower supplies
while it was under Shadowlands control could have been Tainted by their presence. Waving jade
around wouldn’t do enough to set my mind at ease.”

788
 Kudaka raised an eyebrow as she tossed in another round of chips. “What about the sake,
then?”
“This is the last bit.” He gestured to the bottle on the table and matched her bet.
“Fairly mercenary t’ take the final bottle for us,” she observed, then looked at her cards and
nodded. “Right, I’m endin’ this. Reveal.”
To his credit, Oguri hadn’t done too badly: a set of three bushi, each from a different suit,
were spread carefully upon the table. Kudaka nodded with approval and gave her opponent a
moment to feel proud before she spread her own hand upon the table, fanning out her cards to reveal
a run of lotus with a shugenja at its peak. Oguri, defeated, leaned back in his creaky chair, shaking
his head. “Mercenary or no,” he sighed, “I would call that sake fairly necessary for being beaten so
badly when I’m playing with you.” His face brightened. “Although I do have a shōgi board in hand,
if you’d consider—”
“No chance.” Kudaka barked a laugh, sweeping the chips into her sizable pile before
retrieving and carefully shuffling her cards. “I know better’n to play you at any game what involves
strategizin’ and movin’ around units.” Oguri nodded, sighed again, and stood.
“Very well. Shall we walk the battlements a bit, then?” Kudaka nodded and slid her winnings
into a pouch as she stood. She knew the sight of the two of them taking stock of the situation helped
put the troops a bit more at ease—if that were at all possible. The strain on even the most stalwart
of her sailors was beginning to show, and Oguri had needed to break up at least one fight in the last
few days. They both tried to make their strolls seem more like those of leaders taking a walk than
anything else, but their eyes had been regarding the horizon more intensely the longer they remained
in the Watchtower of Sun’s Shadow.
She suddenly smirked and shook the pouch of chips at Oguri, who raised a curious eyebrow
at her. “Feel like a race up there, cormorant?” she needled him gently. “Li’l somethin’ to lighten the
mood, maybe. Not to mention maybe win back some pride.”
Oguri chuckled, and a look crossed his face that reminded her very much of his father’s
calculating expression. “Double or nothing?”
“I dunno if we have any more chips than this, but sure, I’m game.”
“Good,” Oguri said and in a flash was running up the stairs, two by two. Kudaka cursed in
surprise and dropped her cards in a pocket, beckoning quickly to the kami around them, boosting

789
herself halfway up the stairs on a gust of air and taking off at a run. It was too little too late, however,
and both leaders were soon out of breath atop the Wall, steadying themselves against the parapet.
“Cheeky trick, that.” Kudaka chuckled. “Think I might be a bad influence.”
“If you think that particular gambit came from you...” Oguri chuckled and straightened his
clothes. “Then I don’t believe you really met my father.”
A sentry approached, and Oguri greeted her with a respectful incline of his head. “Pardon
me, Yasuki-sama, Kudaka... sama,” she said. “There’s a dust cloud coming, but the source is too far
away to see.”
Kudaka and Oguri shared a look, then shoved away whatever hope was in it like cards into
a pocket as they followed the angle of the sentry’s outstretched arm, pointed toward the northeast.
Oguri took out a spyglass, and Kudaka had her own moment to seethe in impatience, as she’d left
her own back on the Poison Tide—which was hopefully safely docked at Kyūden Hida by now. In
tense silence, the young Yasuki gazed through the glass, giving the brass tube the occasional twist
to focus it, and then he let out a half laugh of relief.
“A small number of Crab troops on horseback.” He chuckled. “Flying the clan mon on their
banners and everything. For a bit there I thought some other fresh disaster was upon us. I— ” The
young man cut himself off and leaned forward, as if that would help his view. After an extended
look, he lowered the spyglass and snapped it shut, replaced it in his pocket, and turned to the guard.
“Have the watch open up the far entrance and have water and extra hands ready to help the
newcomers. I’ll be down shortly.” The guard nodded hurriedly and began shouting orders, while
Kudaka followed Oguri back down the steps to the table. She watched with curiosity as he poured
the last of the sake into his cup and raised an eyebrow as he threw it back in a gulp.
“Not a thing I think I seen you do before, kick back a drink like that,” she observed wryly.
“Somethin’ tells me this newcomer ain’t gonna be the best of company.”
Oguri sighed and stifled a cough. “Hida Etsuji is a perfectly capable warrior and
commander,” he said with a grimace, “and cousin to the daimyō besides. Trouble is...” He shook
his head. “He’s proud, and he’ll almost certainly be wanting to take full control of the situation.”
Kudaka frowned. “Ain’t that what we were hopin’ for? Replacements?”
Oguri sighed. “Unless he’s got more troops following him, I don’t think it’ll be enough.
There’s also the fact that he’s not terribly fond of other clans, especially when it comes to fighting
the Shadowlands.”

790
 Kudaka snorted in disdain but caught the warning look in the young man’s eye and turned it
into an exasperated sigh. “I can’t promise I’ll swoon at his charm, but I’ll do my best to play nice,
yeah? He might not like Mantis, but neither me nor my troops came here to help him.”
Oguri pursed his lips before nodding. “Fair enough,” he declared, and he began to walk
toward the far entrance of the keep, where several Crab soldiers were undoing the locks on the heavy
iron-bound safety door. It was a precaution against overwhelming assault, so that at least one
survivor could get out to warn other towers if the watchtower’s fall was imminent: the door would
be held open, the chosen one would escape, and the door would be shut behind them, leaving the
rest to their honorable fate. Oguri had admitted to Kudaka that he’d checked it shortly after the battle
and found it still locked—whatever had wiped out the watchtower’s previous troops hadn’t even
given them time to begin an exit.
Kudaka gave a slight shudder at the thought, and at the shriek of the door’s rusted iron bands
as a soldier hauled it open. A moment later, a small force of troops came through, sashimono on
their backs bobbing as they ducked to let the banners through the door—Kudaka squashed a smile
at the thought of crabs scuttling carefully under a rock. The sight of the beasts crushed the smile
further as she saw how the animals panted, foam built up at the sides of their mouths. She didn’t
know much about horses, but she could recognize something driven to its limit, and she was willing
to bet a koku that this Etsuji fellow didn’t care.
“Welcome, Hida-san,” Oguri said, giving a polite bow. “We thank you for responding to our
summons, and with haste.” The Yasuki paused, his eyes taking in the dozen companions of the Hida
commander, all dressed in similar heavy armor—albeit lacking the large brass crab claws that
formed the maedate at the front of his helmet—and returned his attention to the leader. “Will we be
expecting any more of your troops?”
“No more should be needed,” Etsuji said gruffly, handing the reins to a waiting Crab Clan
soldier without taking his eyes off of Oguri. There was something about the man that reminded
Kudaka of her own daimyō, Yoritomo—until he smiled widely and gave a nod that strode past
confidence and into the territory of arrogance. “But we do have a cart of supplies following. It should
be here before nightfall.”
“Any engineers or masons, perhaps? The breach may be rebuilt, but it isn’t fixed, and—”
Etsuji abruptly cut off Oguri with a firm shake of his head. “Your messenger spoke of a need
for troops, and we are here to answer it. The Watchtower of the Iron Hammer fields warriors, not

791
pilers of stone. I would say that is your job, Yasuki-san, but it is too bad you cannot talk the stone
into doing what you want, eh?” His laugh was rough, and though Oguri did join him, Kudaka knew
the young man well enough to see the subtle annoyance camouflaged in the tightness of his smile.
“Don’t believe the tales of Yasuki talking water into their vessels without needing to dip
them into a spring.” He laughed, just barely too sharply. “My father is the better negotiator by far,
and even he has yet to convince a wall to build itself.”
The big man nodded dismissively, and Kudaka tensed as his dark-eyed gaze landed on her.
“Yet you do seem to have a tenkinja here—and the water witch has had no luck fixing things?” She
ground her teeth on a retort, remembering her words to Oguri, and kept her mouth in a firm line as
he continued. “And I thought there were supposed to be three here. Where are the other two?”
“On the way back to Kyūden Hida to report,” Kudaka interjected, doing her best to keep the
acid out of her tone. “They was needed to speed the boat, fast as possible.”
Etsuji hardly looked convinced, adjusting the pair of swords at his belt. “Not surprising they
couldn’t handle being out here—it is often too much for any who are not Crab. Besides, this is too
far from the brine for their liking; they probably got too dried out. You should have had proper Crab
shugenja accompany you, Yasuki-san. They would have been able to get that wall rebuilt without
any of your troops needing to lift a finger.”
Again Oguri laughed that tinny, false laugh—a fact that Etsuji didn’t seem to notice, and one
that Kudaka suddenly doubted that she herself would have been aware of several weeks ago, when
they had first set out for the watchtower. The young man flashed a quick warning glance at Kudaka
before flicking his eyes at the ground. She looked down to see that a small whirlwind of dust had
appeared around the Hida’s feet, and she hurriedly smoothed over her thoughts and dismissed the
air kami that had caused it in response to her agitation. Unaware, Etsuji continued, gesturing at the
watchtower grounds.
“—shouldn’t be over there at all. Weapons should be closer to the entrances.”
“We thought it would be wiser to keep them centrally—easier to find, and if one or both of
the entrances are taken, we wouldn’t be without adequate defense.” Etsuji scoffed at Oguri’s
comment and removed his helmet, holding it tucked carefully under his arm.
“Another problem with these Mantis soldiers. A Crab is always at the ready, especially this
close to the Shadowlands. I would look upon the rest of this outpost, to see if it is in order and how
much work I will need to do when I take over command.”

792
 Oguri opened his mouth in protest, then shut it and nodded. “Of course, Hida-san. Your
horses will be taken care of—please tell your troops to set up as they require while I show you
around... With the exception of the barracks, of course, to respect those on the night watch who are
now resting.” He threw a glance at Kudaka while he and Etsuji walked away, and she nodded
quickly, understanding.
Kudaka walked back over to the game table, gesturing to her second mate, Sojiro, as she did
so. “Aye, lady?” he said, idly scratching the long scar on his neck from a wound that had nearly cost
him his head. “Some great donkey that Crab fella is, ain’t he?”
“And then some.” She sighed. “But we’re to play nice. Just think of the koku we’re earnin’
for this, and keep it civil.”
The sailor spat and frowned. “Won’t be easy.” He grunted. “’Sides, I thought that were the
plan—get the Crab back their pile o’ rocks; then we head back t’ the mother waters. That change?”
Hearing the edge in his tone, Kudaka gave him a level look, and Sojiro bent his head
reflexively like a reed in a sharp breeze. “Nah,” she said slowly, “but I don’t like this. Don’t sit
right, exactly.”
“Havin’ t’ be nice t’ that thick-necked stomper don’t either.”
“Then I’ll make it easier. Get everyone to the barracks—let’s stay out of that Hida’s way for
now, and when the supply wagon arrives, let’s hope it has sake.
“In the meantime...” She grinned and held up her cards. “Let’s see who’s up for letting me
take all of their money.”

It was after sunset when she finally saw Oguri again, padding up the stairs to the parapets facing the
Shadowlands. They hadn’t been there long, and it hadn’t ever been a thing they’d agreed upon, but
every night the two had found themselves there, watching the sun go down across the long, barren
expanse of the cursed lands across the river and the night sweep its blanket across the world. She
gave him a welcoming nod as he approached and continued walking a coin across the fingers of her
right hand, a winning from the hours before. “Neat trick,” he said quietly.
“Nervous tic,” she explained. “Learned it from a trader hailin’ from the Ivory Kingdoms.
Took me years to get right, and even now, muscles knowing the memory n’ all, still tricky. Makes
me concentrate. Only thing can get me through bad situations I can’t control, sometimes.”
Oguri sighed. “I’d say this qualifies. I wish I could walk a coin past dealing with Etsuji.”

793
 Kudaka shot him a sideways look. “Eh? You get along with everyone.”
“Hardly means I like everyone!” Another sigh, and for a moment there was silence as the
two watched the shadows stretch long and dark across the land. “He is a good commander—his
troops obviously respect him. And I have heard his skills in battle are well honed.”
“But his diplomacy, not so much?”
“By far.” Oguri shook his head. “I understand that might not be what’s most needed here,
but this situation worries me. I suspect—as I’m sure Etsuji does too—that his name is stale in the
mouths of his superiors, and he needs something to boost his reputation if he wants to rise higher
than commander. I imagine he thinks this is the place for it.”
“Glorious victory,” Kudaka said grandly, then spit, the words bitter on her tongue. Certainly
the Crab were owed some glory, but this was toying with forces too deadly to think of. “Any good
tide seer knows you don’t fight storms; you guide ’em away—and you certainly don’t call ’em to
your feet. If this Hida gets a storm that’s more’n he can take, more’n just his pride will be broken.”
Oguri’s shoulders slumped. “It’s a bad situation. From the moment Etsuji and his troops
arrived, I could hear mine chattering excitedly about going home. They’re not trained to be out here
like the watchtower guards are—and the reduced rations we’ve been on have got them on edge. I’d
imagine things aren’t much different for you and yours, either.”
Kudaka passed the coin to her left hand and let it continue its journey back and forth across
her fingers. “You’d be right. And they ain’t much for excuses. Sure, they’ve trusted my feelings—
bad and good—many a time, but even that goodwill only goes so far. They’re so eager to leave I
think they’re lookin’ forward to the walk southward to the Watchtower of Grim Resolve without
even waitin’ for the Poison Tide to return.”
Kudaka abruptly flipped the coin in the air and snatched it as it fell, then froze and leaned
forward, her eyes wide to catch all the light she could. She could feel Oguri’s curious gaze on her,
but as she’d watched to catch the coin, she’d seen another glitter in the darkness—faint and far
away, but there. With eyes that had seen through fog thick as matted fur and dark as pitch, she
strained her sight, and stretched out her will to the kami just a little, feeling a kind of unease, a
stirring across the river.
Something cool and metal bumped into her shoulder and she started, then saw Oguri handing
her his spyglass, nodding. Saying nothing, Kudaka quickly extended it and gazed farther into the
darkness, scanning the other riverbank.

794
 .....and roughly gasped “bakemono!” as the hideous, toothy visage of a goblin skittered into
her vision. She stood abruptly, and her eyes met Oguri’s, his face serious and not without a touch of
fear.
“Looks like Etsuji’s getting his attack sooner than any of us thought,” he muttered, then
turned and sent out a yell at the top of his lungs. “ATTACK! Goblins across the water! Get to your
stations! Archers, to the west wall! Bring me a bow!”
The alarm bell’s rough metal clang resounded through the watchtower and feet clambered
up the stone steps. Peering through the darkness, soldiers grabbed quivers and bows. A full volley
came next, illuminating figures on the opposite bank who were drawing and loosing with practiced
speed. Kudaka acted quickly to douse whatever arrows stuck and began to burn and was grateful
that nobody had yet been hit.
“FLAME ARROWS!” thundered a voice farther down the parapets, practiced from shouting
across the din of battle. “DRAW! Attendants, LIGHT!” Five archers drew taut their longbows while
attendants touched lit reeds to the arrows, catching the oil-soaked rags around the arrowheads alight.
“LOOSE!” Etsuji bellowed, and five more fiery arrows launched across the River of the Last Stand,
burying themselves in the soil of the other side—save for one, which elicited a shriek that subsided
to a gurgle as the target collapsed, its body slowly catching flame. In the lights of that ghastly pyre,
they finally could be seen, albeit faintly: a large number of bakemono, dangerous twisted shortbows
at the ready.
This only seemed to whet Etsuji’s appetite. “Just a pack of damn goblins!” he roared,
grabbing up a bow and nocking an arrow. “Hurry up and bring them down!”
Arrows hissed across the river, and a chorus of unearthly shrieks followed each volley—
with only the occasional grunt from the watchtower as a lucky arrow tagged an odd shoulder not
fully in cover—until a long silence seemed to stretch through the night, and no volley of arrows
followed. “Disappointing,” Etsuji growled, slinging his bow roughly around his shoulder. “You said
you’d fought ogres, Yasuki. To just send goblins to harry us is... insulting.”
Kudaka opened her mouth to reply but noticed Oguri twitch his head to the side, as if a
sudden thought had grabbed his head and pulled it. “Can’t be. If it was just to harry us, they’d have
left the second they started losing significant numbers, or weren’t causing casualties—even their
bows were the wrong...” His eyes widened suddenly and snapped to meet hers.

795
 “This can’t be the only attack. Can you ask the kami? I need to know something, and I can’t
risk losing more arrows if worse is coming.”
Surprised, Kudaka nodded, and she stretched out her consciousness, reaching to the kami of
the river, connecting distantly with their essence. They did not communicate using words as humans
knew them, but she passed along a feeling of query, and received in return a wave of anger, anguish,
revulsion, and wrongness—strong enough that bile coated the back of her throat. “Somethin’s there.
Somethin’ not right.”
Oguri didn’t waste a second, grabbing up a torch and hurling it over the parapet wall, sending
the burning brand spinning end over end until it landed with a thump near the edge of the river,
spreading a thin light across the bank. For a moment, there was nothing. And then a ripple, and the
shadow of a body shambled forward. And another. And another.
“Undead!” Oguri cried out. “Walking along the riverbed! Fire arrows, raise and—”
“NOT A CHANCE!” Etsuji barked, hefting a large warhammer and charging down the steps.
“TROOPS! To me! Cross the breach and destroy any that make it to shore!”
In shock, Kudaka watched the commander run toward battle, fire arrows from the parapets
peppering both shores for visibility, until she started at the touch of a hand on her arm. “Can you do
something?” Oguri’s face was pleading. “The undead don’t move quickly; there’s no telling how
many are still down there. With the breach still unfixed...”
She nodded and grinned despite herself—maybe some of that Crab’s vigor is catching, she
thought absently. “Do my best. I think the river kami will be more’n happy to comply.”
Through the haze she reached out her mind again, meeting the kami, distressed as they were,
and asked for their aid. You flow already; it’s easy. Just a bit more vigor for now, bit more focused,
to wash ’em to the other bank, to shove ’em back, not down. There was a sense of agreement, and
with their wills linked, Kudaka lifted her arms as if against a heavy block and pushed—sending a
great wall of water arcing from the river, like a flat tile flipping over, depositing dark shapes of
bodies in crumped masses on the other side. She leaned against the wall for support, watching the
river right itself, and looked below to see Etsuji and his troops finish off the undead that had made
it ashore, Etsuji’s yelling audible even from the parapets.
“You all right?”
Kudaka chuckled at Oguri’s question. “It’s taxin’ being out here,” she admitted. “Every day
I feel more and more kinda—pressure—from somethin’ out there, and it’s takin’ more outta me to

796
keep it back than I like. But I’ll be fine.” Her grin turned lopsided, a little impish. “Might be the
lack of sake in particular botherin’ me.”
Oguri gave a laugh of relief. “Well, that’s fixable, at least. For now, let’s get down to the
courtyard—we need to have some words with Etsuji.”
She was just turning away from the scene below when something tugged at her—something
dark, dangerous, familiar—and her eyes widened, causing her to whirl around reflexively and stare
back into the dark, straining her vision, even though she knew she wouldn’t see it. It’s not comin’
close, not after what happened to the other one. She was breathing heavily, sweating in the night
air, and she tried to slow her thundering heartbeat. It took her a moment to realize Oguri was holding
her shoulder—both her shoulders. Had he stopped her from falling?
“—ang on, Kudaka, come back!” His voice was insistent, and it had a worried tinge to it she
hadn’t heard from him before. She shook her head and steadied herself, brushing hair out of her eyes
with a hand she wished wasn’t trembling so much. “What happened?” His face was full of genuine
concern, dark eyes holding hers. She searched for something glib to say, but the truth fell out of her
like blood from a wound.
“Another kansen,” she whispered, swallowing hard and coughing slightly. “It didn’t come
at me—I dunno if it was even there for me. I... I don’t think it was.”
“YASUKI-SAN!” came the cry from below, jubilant. “You and the tenkinja fall off the Wall?
Come down here and celebrate with us!”
Kudaka found her footing and drew slowly away from Oguri, who made sure she was steady
before removing his hands from her shoulders. She gave him a nod that by now, between them, had
a clear meaning: later. He began to descend the stairs, and she hesitated before stilling her face and
following after.

The cheers of Etsuji and his troops rang through the night air, echoing eerily as the soldiers stepped
through the passage in the roughly boarded and masoned breach on the river wall. Kudaka observed
with irritation that Etsuji’s troops had torn out some of the new masonry in order to get through, and
she saw Oguri’s shoulders tense as, she imagined, he noticed the same. Etsuji himself finally strode
through, his blue-gray armor and warhammer splattered with gore, and nodded at them—well, at
Oguri more so than Kudaka—with a self-satisfied look. “A fine skirmish,” he cried, handing his
weapon to one of his attendants, who hurriedly applied jade to it to stave off any Shadowlands Taint.

797
“Good thing to think about the river, Yasuki-san. Haven’t seen the Shadowlands troops use that kind
of tactic before, but it will take more than a few dozen corpses to defeat us!”
“Well, the river was something that Kudaka noticed, not me,” Oguri corrected, his tone
controlled but a little stiff. “And I’m less concerned about their numbers than I am about their
subtlety. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Shadowlands forces using new tactics—the recent
Battle of Twenty Pyres at Kyūden Hida and the hidden attack that went along with it, the breach
here, the—” His mouth closed on the rest of his words as Etsuji shook his head and gave a harsh
laugh.
“What, you’re afraid of a little challenge? Go hide under a lily pad like the koi in your
family’s mon, if you’re so scared. If the Shadowlands scum think they can terrify us by walking
underwater, they have a rude surprise coming, courtesy of my hammer.”
“Your hammer’s just as dense’s your head,” Kudaka snapped, unsure if it was tiredness or
frustration that had driven her to the breaking point, and not caring much if it was either or both.
“D’you know how much work you just undid by breakin’ open that masonry to get outside? Why
not just drop rocks n’ such on the undead from the safety of the parapets? I’m from the sea and even
I can tell that’s the better option.” Etsuji’s eyes narrowed into dark slits, but Kudaka wasn’t finished.
“What’s more, I may not be no military genius, but even I know what it looks like to sound out an
enemy. That weren’t a real attack—they was testin’ the defenses.”
“And they will hardly find them wanting!” Etsuji snarled, his reed-thin patience breaking.
“Twelve bushi finished off over forty goblins and at least as many undead—I do not call those
numbers a test, not when they failed to land even a single blow upon my troops. And I do not need
some spindly saltwater insect to tell me my business!”
Kudaka snorted, and the reflexive gust of air that echoed it snapped her robes around her
like a stiff gale. “And I ain’t here to deal with hardheaded scuttlers like you, but I do quite care if
those staggerin’ corpses make it over to this side of the shore just because you want to decorate your
hammer with their stinkin’ guts!”
Oguri stepped between them, and his tone had a joviality injected into that sounded almost
like it was meant to placate an angry beast or a thoroughly unreasonable child. “Come, Kudaka, let
us not take away from this victory with ill wishes and unkind words. Hida-san, I congratulate you
on your heroism! My troops and the Mantis will take the watches tonight, so that you and your
troops may take a well-earned rest.”

798
 Etsuji frowned at this, undoing his helmet carefully, then nodded. “A gracious offer, and we
do accept. But to be clear: I mean to command this fort, and that means my troops must be in control
here. If the Mantis wish to remain even for the rest of the night, I need to know they will follow my
orders. We cannot afford confusion regarding who is in charge.” His dark eyes regarded Oguri
carefully. “I know I need not demand this from your own soldiers, for they are loyal Crab, and will
follow a leader who knows I have the best intentions for this watchtower and its defenders.”
“Of course,” Oguri chirped, and Kudaka stiffened at his tone. “Kudaka and I will retreat to
the parapets to keep watch and notify our troops to do the same. I am grateful to you for your
victory.”
When they were away from Etsuji, Kudaka shot Oguri a dubious look. “‘Notify our troops’?
They’re already keepin’ the watch.”
“A bit more placating,” he explained, then heaved a long sigh. “Hardly does any good,
though, if he means to keep this fort to himself.” He paused, then regarded her carefully. “But... that
kansen. If you don’t think that evil spirit was there for you, then there’s one other very real
possibility.”
Kudaka hissed a breath through her teeth. “I weren’t wrong—they were testin’ defenses! No
goblins or undead got away, but something nobody could see...” She looked up at Oguri, blood
running cold. “Hardheaded or not, we gotta warn him.”
Oguri shook his head slowly. “I can tell you already that he wouldn’t believe you, and I don’t
think he’d believe me either—‘under the spell of that witch,’ I fear he’d say. I can do my best to
advise him, and will, but...” He trailed off in frustration. “In his mind, that was a complete victory—
and likely the first of many. I could suggest he call in reinforcements from other watchtowers, but
if he feels it’ll take any of the focus off of him...” He shook his head, his face dark.
Kudaka snarled and spit, frustrated. “So all this been for nothin’, then?”
“Not unless we find a way to make Etsuji call in reinforcements. And nobody in this area
outranks him.”
Kudaka crossed her arms, chewing her lip in thought. “One captain can’t just take over from
another unless they got someone bigger’n them makin’ the orders... and for someone like Etsuji, I
imagine it’d have to be by more’n a little bit.”
Oguri’s eyes met hers, a flicker of moonlight illuminating his consternation. “I just hope
Kisada listens.”

799
 The two stood the rest of the watch in silence and, despite knowing they would be leaving
just after dawn, found themselves unwilling to move until a wan light returned to the world, painting
the pale stones of the watchtower for what both of them hoped wouldn’t be the last time.

800
He’d always known it might happen. There had been a chance it wouldn’t, that he’d been careful
enough, but it had always been slight. No, just as for the generations of Kuni daimyō before him,
Yori’s fate had been cast the moment he embraced his duty.
If corruption hadn’t touched him, then that would mean he hadn’t gone far enough, that he’d
held back in his task. How easy it would have been to preserve his own spiritual purity, surrounded
himself in jade and ignorance, never compromising for others, devoting his life to his own growth
and nothing else. But was that why one became a shugenja? To value one’s own spiritual purity
over the safety of the Empire? That was not virtuous. It was shameful. A weakness of pampered
times. A healer of disease knew they risked contagion and proceeded regardless.
So he had. And now it had come to this.
The pain of his burns, inflicted by the jade light, grew fainter. They were only minor burns,
after all. He hadn’t turned completely. But it would be just a matter of time, now.
When had it happened? Why hadn’t he noticed? He’d called the jade light himself not but a
few days ago. He’d handled jade regularly. But as he reflected, it began to make more sense. There
had been a listlessness to his energy as of late, and the kansen had been venturing closer than normal.
Like a tree rotting from the inside, he hadn’t seen the hollowing of his own soul.
Yori looked into Tadaka’s staring face. “I told you, my student. It was bound to happen
someday.”
Tadaka swallowed. This would be hard for him. He had just lost a father, and with no time
to grieve, now he would be burdened with this.

801
 He’d been a good student. He should have been born a Kuni. He had the talent for the work,
and the power, too. He just needed the pragmatism. What would come next would be easier, then.
But it could not be helped. Now was his final test.
“My student, remember above all else, this is inevitable for all who walk this path. But it is
preferred to a life spent holed up in a shrine, wasted without achieving some small victory against
Jigoku. For shugenja to guard their own spiritual purity, to value our vows above what is good for
all of the Emperor’s servants, is the most selfish thing we could do, because it prioritizes oneself
over the suffering of the masses and leaves them to Jigoku’s whims.”
Slowly he placed his wakizashi on the ground, then slid it toward the Master of Earth. “It is
your choice now,” he said. “Before you stands a Tainted monster. Everything he did, he did for his
clan. Everything he learned, his clan will use to fight against Fu Leng. But that does not change
what he has become. It is time, Tadaka. Will you do what is necessary?”
Tadaka picked up the sword. He stood there, weighing it, for a long while.
At last he fed it into his obi. “Not when you could still serve.”
Yori felt his smirk break into a full smile. In a handful of weeks, Tadaka had learned
something that took others years, if they ever learned it at all: never waste an opportunity to learn
from your enemy.
“Congratulations,” Yori said. “There is nothing more I can teach you.”
“Perhaps,” Tadaka remarked, extending the wakizashi, offering it back. “But there is still
much to do.”
“Keep it.” Yori tucked his arms into his sleeves. “When the time comes, use it. Sever my
head, before I turn completely. Don’t let Jigoku claim this body.”
“How could I take my own teacher’s head?” he whispered.
“It would be a mercy,” Yori reminded him. “It is what I’ve been teaching you all this time.
How can you be worthy of the Kuni’s secrets if you will not do what is necessary to obtain them?”
They stood still, the entire world turning around them.
“What happens now?” the Asako woman asked, the nezumi hovering protectively beside
her. She wasn’t a mahō-tsukai, as he had suspected. A ratling would never stand with one who was
Tainted.
“I am grateful to you, Asako-san. I might have turned fully in my sleep. Instead, you ensured
that I would be cast into the light.”

802
 “You didn’t answer me.” Her guard was still up. Wise.
He looked to Tadaka. “We have one last thing we must do. And we must do it while I am
still in control of myself.”
“I will watch him,” Tadaka affirmed, “and guard him. When he goes too far, I will...”
He faltered. Regathered his strength. “I will make sure it is quick.” There was stone in his
voice, then. Yori could sense his conviction, his resolve. Yet all Yori could think of was the useless
deference of the Isawa, a man who attributed such sacredness to the ordinary object, who
worshipped his tools. Would Tadaka truly have the resolve to do it, when the time came?
Tsuki closed her eyes. “We will.” She regarded Tadaka with that determined face. “Honored
Master, my champion ordered me to bring you home. To return without you would be a disgrace
that would shame my family. I cannot do that. So I will remain by your side until the deed is done,
whatever it may be.”
Tadaka looked as though he would protest, but then said, “Are you certain?”
She nodded.
“Then I am going, too,” the nezumi said, drawing a stare from the Elemental Master.
Yori didn’t protest. He was in no position to, anymore. What a strange gathering they had
become.
And deep inside, he knew that the strangest was yet to come.

803
Hantei Sotorii woke in a cold sweat. He did not know how long he had been sleeping. A thin, sweet
strain of incense curled through the darkness around him, cutting through a scent of musk and clay.
Ceramics—urns, jars, cheap teacups—lined the walls of the cramped, dark room. A faint layer of
reddish grime covered every surface.
A figure stirred in one corner of the room and rose to stand over his tatami mat. A pair of
dark eyes looked down at him, unblinking.
“Wh—who are you?” Sotorii asked in a trembling voice.
The figure extended one long, hairy arm and undid a latch, then pushed a window open. The
room flooded with a thin, watery light. A crisp coldness filled Sotorii’s lungs as fresh air blew
through the hovel. The old man’s thin face, shrouded by matted hair and beard, suddenly came into
view. He smiled down at the prince with heavy-lidded eyes.
“Call me Yotsu,” said the man. His voice was low and gravelly.
The window opened onto a bleak, muddy vegetable garden that gave way to a steep meadow.
Beyond it rose the craggy granite spire of a tall mountain wreathed in otherworldly mist. Several
weathered farming implements rested against a knotted fence.
Sotorii leaned upright, then felt a shock of pain in his back. He yelped and fell prone. The
pain crept up his back and into his abdomen as he breathed.
“Don’t sit up,” said Yotsu.
“I cannot move my legs.”
“When I found you, you were passed out in the ravine. You must’ve fallen.”
“I demand you take me to a physician, then.”

804
 The old man snorted. His breath smelled awful.
“When you can walk, perhaps.”
Sotorii tried to move his foot. A sharp pain, followed by numbness, spread up his calf. He
felt his face go red as he stiffened his posture, trying to look as lordly as possible.
“I am Hantei Sotorii, a prince of the Imperial family. It is your duty to help me!”
The old man laughed. “But I am helping you.”
“I mean—I need you to do as I command!”
Yotsu chuckled, then rose and retrieved a bowl from a dark corner of the room. Upon
returning, he pulled the prince’s blanket back and, grabbing him bodily by the shoulders, rolled him
on his side. A stinging pain shot up the prince’s spine as the old man rubbed some foul-smelling
ointment on his skin.
“The softness of your hands told me you came from money, but I had no idea I had found a
broken prince!” the old man croaked.
Sotorii’s skin prickled as a soothing numbness spread down his lower back.
“Do not mock me, old man.”
“Am I the very first to see the royal prince’s bottom?” Yotsu cackled. Gently, the old man
turned him back and drew the blanket up. His cracked lips broke in a wry smile.
Sotorii felt his face grow hot. “How dare you disrespect the heir to the Throne! You dishonor
yourself.”
“I’m already dishonored enough, thank you,” Yotsu said gravely.
The old man went to the other side of the room and sat cross-legged in front of a potter’s
wheel. He placed a lump of wet clay upon the wheel and began to shape it with cracked and mud-
caked fingers.
“Once you can walk again, I will take you to the village. It’s a day’s walk down the mountain,
and very treacherous.”
The prince scoffed. His eyes drifted to the mean decorations around the old man’s hovel. A
weathered wakizashi lay in its sheath in a place of honor against one wall. A stick of incense burned
slowly before it, the tip glowing dully in the murk. Arrayed on a table were fifteen rough teacups
along with several old rags, a faded scroll, and an ornate cloth bearing the mon of some family he
could not recognize.

805
 The prince sulked in silence as Yotsu made several more teacups, then began shaping a large
bowl.
“I demand you carry me down the mountain.”
A smirk tugged at the old man’s lip.
“If I carry you down the mountain, you’ll groan and ache all the way.”
“I am strong,” cut in the prince.
“Surely the prince is very strong,” said Yotsu. “But the incredible force of the prince’s
complaints will catch the attention of a wolf or a bear. And I don’t think wild beasts care whether
or not one is a prince.”
“When the Imperial Guard rescue me, I will tell them how you have tormented me and held
me hostage,” Sotorii said darkly.
The old man did not respond.

Sotorii stood at the edge of a precipice, staring down at the spine of mountains, rolling plains, murky
thickets: the body of Rokugan. His hair flew in stray wisps around his face as dark clouds gathered
above, churning in strange patterns. A sudden peal of thunder boomed, followed by a bolt of
lightning that struck a lone tree on the fields below, setting it on fire. A gale howled in the prince’s
ears as the clouds broke. He could see, somewhere in the shifting thunderheads, something of his
father’s face: the pitch of his nose, his piercing eyes, and his mouth, open as if screaming...
“Leave me in peace!” Sotorii shouted into the furor.
The gathering storm—his father’s face—grew larger, and the mouth opened wide and
descended upon him. Sotorii flung his arms up to cover his eyes as the wind blew harder, cutting
his face with stray rocks and dust. Another peal of thunder. And then, a gathering wind.
A low rumble rippled through Sotorii’s body. He was surrounded on all sides by formless
shapes, swiping at each other with sharp blades. A sudden wild, animal fear gripped him as two
colossal figures clashed overhead, spraying gouts of blood. All around him was the din and clatter
of battle, and a horrible rip and tear of fabric and flesh, and screams, and prayers, and the sounds of
dying.
Sotorii awoke, sweating, in the potter’s hovel. His legs ached; he had been there for over a
week. The old man’s face was a crescent moon, outlined by flickering candlelight. He brought a
steaming cup of tea to the prince. Sotorii raised it to his lips, then recoiled at the smell.

806
 “Are you trying to poison me, old man?”
“It’ll calm your mind,” Yotsu growled. “Drink it.”
“I do not want to.”
Sotorii had no time to react as the potter tipped the cup back and forced him to drink; the hot
liquid burned as it ran down his throat. Coughing, the prince looked murderously at his caretaker.
“No one has ever treated me as terribly as you have.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
The old man’s hand trembled as he raised his own cup to his lips, then drank. A long,
serpentine scar ran the length of his forearm, visible in the hazy candlelight. The prince’s mind
wandered back to the Imperial Palace; to his father, turned away from him in his study; and to the
warmth of summer evenings. And then he was in a deep and restful sleep.

One morning before dawn, Yotsu lifted the prince from his mat, wrapped him in a blanket, and
carried him outside, where he draped him over his back like a child. It was still dark.
“Where are we going?”
The old man did not reply. He breathed through his mouth, puffing white steam in the cold
morning air. Sotorii knitted his fingers together as the potter carried him past his sullen garden
uphill.
“Your breath is horrible,” the prince whispered.
“So is yours,” grunted the old man.
Overhead, the stars shone in a dance of light and color. Sotorii held his breath, then exhaled
loudly. The ground underfoot sloped steadily upward; the spine of the mountains blocked the stars
in an outline. Yotsu puffed loudly in his ears.
“You could have taken me to a physician by now,” grumbled the prince.
The potter did not reply.
The grade of the mountain grew steeper. The old man began to climb, hand and foot, edging
past pocked boulders and shrubs. Sotorii turned his head to look behind them; the eastern sky had
begun to glow with sunrise. The illumination burned through the cloak of mist, alighting upon dewy
blades of grass like an otherworldly flame. For a moment, Sotorii lost himself, staring out at the
golden rivers and numinous pools down below.

807
 And then the potter carried him through a rocky eye to a quiet, still lake. Bare trees stood at
intervals around the water, and a white sandy shore fringed the edges. The sky continued to redden
with the advent of dawn, turning to a polychromatic display of violet, magenta, and azure.
Something in his heart tightened, then relaxed. He had never seen dawn before. Or at least,
never like this. All his life, he had woken up when he felt like it, always when the sky was bright
and easy. There was something bracing and unknown in the cold morning air. Yotsu eased Sotorii
off his back, then strung a longbow with an oiled string. His face gathered in creases at the eyes as
he did this, and his posture changed to match. He suddenly had the bearing of a soldier.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“Be quiet. You’ll scare the game.”
Yotsu knelt on the cold sand next to him. Sotorii’s mouth watered at the thought of roast
duck and stayed silent. It didn’t take long for movement to cross the lightening sky. A lazy crane
rose, scooping air with its wings, and flew up from the water, followed by many smaller birds. With
strange ease, Yotsu readied his bow, trained it on his target, then loosed a shot, and another. Two
birds fell with a splash.
“Why didn’t you shoot the crane?” Sotorii asked.
“It would be a disrespect,” said the old man. “Also, I can’t carry both a prince and a crane
down the mountain.”
The sky was clear and bright now. Yotsu sloughed off his clothes, revealing a knotted back
covered in deep scars, and walked to the edge of the water. He dove in and paddled to the center of
the lake, then returned with two fat pheasants. Dripping, the potter tossed the birds onto the shoreline
and stretched his arms up toward the sky. Behind him, the water seemed to glow with the sunlight.
As Yotsu re-dressed, the prince looked at him with a curious expression.
“How did you get so many scars?”
“I fought in the Emperor’s wars.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
The old man bound the pheasants with twine and hung them from his obi, then leaned down
and extended a hand to the prince.
“I—I cannot.”
“Be strong.”

808
 Wincing, Sotorii took the potter’s hand and pulled himself to his feet. His shin wobbled as
he put weight on it for the first time in weeks, but he could hold himself up, if only barely. A dull
pain pulsed in his legs and lower back, but it had lost its sharpness. The prince let out a surprised
laugh, then promptly fell back down.
“You see now,” said Yotsu.
Sotorii couldn’t help but smile.

Several days later, Sotorii emerged from the mouth of Yotsu’s hut, leaning on a cane. It was midday
and the sun had eaten the mist from the mountainside, affording the prince a breathtaking view of
the forest and fields south of the range. Past a crown of granite and fir trees, a small village nested
in a crook of the river below.
Gingerly, the prince sat down and continued painting a small teacup as Yotsu sat next to
him. Nobody of any significance would hold this cup. Sotorii painted a cherry blossom tree, then a
maiden holding a fan. The paint ran in thick rivulets down the side, blurring the shapes.
“This paint is bad.” Sotorii raised the cup.
“It wasn’t bad paint. You used too much,” Yotsu said. “But it’ll still sell at market.”
Sotorii huffed. “But when will you sell it?”
“When you’re ready to walk.”
“I can walk now.” The prince set the cup aside.
The old man cocked an eyebrow but didn’t reply.
“I need to see a physician,” Sotorii pressed.
“If you can already walk, do you really?”
The prince’s face grew hot. He rose, shakily, to his feet and started to hobble toward the
woods. Yotsu stayed seated, cross-legged, painting ceramics.
“We’ll go when you’re stronger,” the old man said.
“When your lord commands, you should listen.” Sotorii glared at him.
“You aren’t my lord,” said the potter. “And you aren’t strong enough to go down the
mountain.”
“I order you to carry me!” seethed the prince.
“I ask that you trust me.”

809
 Biting his lip, Sotorii turned to face Yotsu. He let out a long breath. In his belly, it felt as
though two tigers were fighting, clawing at each other.
“I will go alone, then. But I will remember how you forsook your duty to the Emperor.”
Yotsu stretched one arm out toward him as the prince turned and walked toward the woods.
The old man said something he couldn’t understand. It didn’t matter. He braced himself and fixed
his eyes on the village in the distance, and the forest between. Muttering a curse, he started to hobble
downhill, putting one foot in front of the other.
The forest grew denser as he descended. Twice, Sotorii nearly tripped on a jutting stone and
had to grab onto a tree trunk to keep from tumbling down. Soon, he crossed a winding path and
followed it, stopping occasionally to rest.
The path led him to a high rocky shelf over a deep ravine. Down below, a waterfall fed a
shallow creek. Across the ravine, someone had strung a narrow rope bridge, knotted and reknotted
in places.
Sotorii was out of breath, so he sat down. This was surely the reason the old man would not
take him to the village. The bridge looked ready to collapse. But how had Yotsu gotten him across
in the first place? His head hurt thinking about the accident. Was this where he had fallen?
“Greetings,” a voice sounded.
Across the abyss were a trio of rōnin. They looked scrappy and unwashed; the leader was a
beautiful woman with a scar on her right cheek. They looked as though they could carry him across
easily.
“What good luck!” He smiled, rising unsteadily.
“I am Risa, and these are my brothers. Do you need help crossing?”
“Yes, I do.” Sotorii smiled again. Within moments, the trio had crossed. One of the brothers
put a reassuring hand on Sotorii’s shoulder to steady him.
“Who are you?” Risa asked.
“I am Crown Prince Hantei Sotorii,” the prince said proudly. It felt good to say it again. The
three rōnin bowed.
“It will be our pleasure to assist you, your lordship.”
“Thank you for your help.”
Risa nodded, then rose. “What brings the prince to such a remote place?”
“Misfortune,” said Sotorii. “I had an accident, and a stubborn old man took me in.”

810
 “An old man?” one of the brothers asked in a deep voice.
“What was his name?” said Risa.
“It is of no consequence. He was poor company.”
A look passed between the rōnin and her brothers, and she smiled passively at the prince. As
soon as she opened her mouth, though, a rough voice sounded just up the path.
“Leave the boy alone,” barked Yotsu.
Sotorii gave a start as he turned to see the potter standing outlined against the bright sky, his
weathered longbow strung over his shoulder.
Risa gave a wolfish grin upon seeing the potter. Hand on her hip, she turned from the prince
and rested her other hand on the hilt of her katana.
“Lady Matsu has put quite a price on your head, old man.”
“I’ll pay it,” said Yotsu.
“I am afraid that time is past,” said Risa. She nodded to her brother, who locked Sotorii into
an iron grip, holding him close.
“Leave him alone,” seethed Yotsu. “He’s nobody.”
“He told me he is a prince.”
The old man smiled grimly. “The poor boy’s been addled. Do you see his limp? He fell very
far and hit his head.”
“You must be addled if you think you can fool me, old man.”
Yotsu smiled, then drew his bow.
“Give yourself up, and I’ll let the prince go,” said Risa. “I might even let you live.”
“Now you’re the one who’s addled.” The potter snorted.
As Yotsu strung an arrow, Risa was already halfway up the path to where he stood. The old
man drew back the bowstring and shot at the rōnin. She let out a pained scream as the arrow pierced
her shoulder, then struck with her katana before the old man could shoot again. The prince heard a
watery gurgle.
A sudden despair coursed through Sotorii. Risa turned and wiped the blood from her blade
while the old man swayed drunkenly, holding one hand to his throat. Dark blood gushed through
his fingers. His eyes rolled back in his head as he fell.
The prince’s blood ran cold. The stubborn old man who had nursed him to health was
bleeding out on the ground. He launched himself away from his captor and limped up the slope to

811
Yotsu, feeling as though a heavy weight were pressing him down. His legs ached as he knelt before
the potter. The old man’s rough and knotted hand already felt cold.
“I’m sorry,” Sotorii stared into Yotsu’s blank eyes. He found it hard to swallow as his vision
blurred with tears. His hands were sticky.
Risa stood uncomfortably close.
“Get up,” she said.
Sotorii wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his arm. The rōnin loomed over him,
unblinking.
“I said get up.”
The prince rose slowly and glowered at the rōnin, then drew his hand back to strike her. She
caught his fist with hers, then kicked his shin. The prince collapsed like a sack of vegetables.
“Do as I say, prince. We wouldn’t want you to injure yourself further.”
Sotorii kept his face like stone as he stood, then stared at the old man who had saved him,
bled out on the ground like a common animal. He looked down at his hands. They were stained with
dark, viscous blood.

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Crab Clan Novella should be read here. Please go to
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/legend-of-the-five-rings-fiction/products/trail-shadows/ to
purchase the novella.

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813
“An Emperor died in this place, Champion,” Agasha Sumiko said, squinting up from where she
knelt in the wind-tossed grass. “A fitting place for us to meet, is it not?”
Toturi shielded his eyes and looked across the Bay of the Golden Sun. Otosan Uchi sprawled
to his left, the Forbidden City and the top of Seppun Hill protruding from the pall of smoke from
thousands of lanterns and fires, like islands rising from murky water. To his right, eastward, the
Towers of Dawn and Sunset flanking the bay’s entrance, and the endless ocean beyond, were lost
in haze.
It was said that, during the ancient Battle of White Stag, Emperor Yugozohime had sat in
this very place to witness the assault from a powerful gaijin fleet. After Yugozohime’s death at the
hands of the invaders, her successor had issued an Imperial edict meant to safeguard the Emperor
against a similar disaster.
Toturi turned back and knelt beside Sumiko. A fitting place, indeed. A dead ruler, and an
Imperial edict—the very things now at the heart of the current crisis.
Sumiko said nothing, and merely stared across the wind-tossed bay.

Toturi found Kakita Yoshi near a koi pond in the garden of the Crane embassy, the pale blue of his
garments stark against maples the colors of flame. The Imperial Chancellor stood with his hands
behind his back, bouncing a ball from foot to foot, to knee, to shoulder, to foot again.
Kemari was a game popular among courtiers, particularly as a pastime during the long, dark
days of Winter Court. Toturi had been taught it, and had played it, but Yoshi appeared particularly

814
adept at it. The Kakita saw him and said, “Akodo-sama, the ball is”—he bounced it off a knee,
toward Toturi—“yours.”
Toturi received the ball on his instep, then returned it to Yoshi with his opposite knee. Yoshi
received it and served it back.
The ball bounced back and forth. Each time, though, Yoshi returned it a little more
vigorously. Eventually, Toturi lost control, the ball flying off into some late-blooming azaleas.
“Well played, Champion,” Yoshi said, retrieving the ball. “You almost had that one.”
Toturi bowed his thanks. “You are a most skillful player, Chancellor. I am much less familiar
with the game, I’m afraid.” Toturi narrowed his eyes. “Indeed, I have always understood that kemari
is not meant to be competitive, but apparently I am mistaken.”
Yoshi smiled. “There are winners and losers in all things—including kemari.”
Toturi nodded, but only to show that he understood Yoshi’s assertion, not that he necessarily
agreed with it.
Yoshi tucked the ball under his arm. “May I offer you the hospitality of the Crane?”
“I would be grateful to receive it.”
He followed Yoshi to an unremarkable door opening into an equally unremarkable room in
the embassy building. It was decorated with impeccable taste: rice paper screens, sumi-e ink
paintings, and flower arrangements, each individually beautiful, but also collectively arranged with
perfect regard for how the energy flowed through the room—and all of it utterly generic, just sterile
perfection.
Yoshi gestured to a sky-blue cushion beside a mahogany table. A steaming tea service was
already set, and the Kakita set about serving them both.
The tea was, like the room, both perfect and instantly forgettable. It was so unlike the tea
served to him by the criminal master Tamanegi, whom he had met while in the company of Seppun
Ishikawa some weeks earlier. That brisk and unusual taste still seemed to tingle on Toturi’s tongue.
“So,” Yoshi said, “how may I serve the esteemed Emerald Champion?”
“By first satisfying my curiosity at our not meeting in the Forbidden City, but here, so well
removed from it.”
“This is a more discreet location.”
“By which you mean it is not subject to the scrutiny of Scorpion agents.”
Yoshi raised an eyebrow. “That is a very direct assumption.”

815
 “Almost being assassinated tends to make one direct.”
Yoshi stared at Toturi for a moment, then placed his teacup down with a delicate tap. “Very
well. Indeed, I assume no word or deed in the Forbidden City goes unheard by the Regent. That is
far less of a concern here.”
“You seem uncomfortable with Lord Bayushi Shoju’s appointment as Regent.”
“I would never question the will or wisdom of the late Son of Heaven,” Yoshi said, his eyes
narrowing, “and find it surprising—”
“Please,” Toturi cut in. “You oppose his appointment as Regent. I wish to know why.”
Again, Yoshi simply stared at Toturi for a moment. “Very well, we shall continue being
direct, then. I am deeply concerned by his appointment, yes.”
“Again, why? His appointment was legitimate. I myself wrote the edict proclaiming it, at the
behest of the late Emperor.”
“I know that, Akodo-sama,” Yoshi said, then arched a delicate eyebrow. “I would assume
that is why he sought to have you killed—by his own brother, in fact.”
Toturi stared.
Too slow, Lord Lion...
As a child, Toturi had been vexed by a particular finger puzzle, right up to the abrupt instant
he wasn’t, and the solution was simply there. He now had another such moment. A shinobi of great
skill had attacked him. Bayushi Aramoro, despite being the Imperial Advisor’s bodyguard, had
almost certainly been trained in ninjutsu, as was not uncommon for Scorpion warriors. And that
voice he had been trying so hard to place—Too slow, Lord Lion—most definitely had been that of
Shoju’s half-brother.
Which meant that Shoju had, indeed, sought to have Toturi killed.
He looked back at Yoshi, asking the first question that came to him. “How did you come to
know this?”
“I have learned that the woman sitting in the place of the Imperial Advisor is an imposter.
That has given me a certain... leverage over her.”
Any other time, learning that the Imperial Chancellor was coercing an imposter pretending
to be the Imperial Advisor into compliance would have been... mind-boggling. But Toturi’s capacity
for shock was all but saturated. He finally just asked, “Where is Bayushi Kachiko, then?”

816
 “I do not know. Absent, as part of some convoluted scheme, no doubt.” Yoshi’s face became
even more grave. “There is another matter of concern, however. Agasha Sumiko has revealed to me
that the ancestral sword of the Hantei, Kunshu, has been sent to Yogo Junzo.”
Toturi blinked at the sudden change of subject. “The Ruby Champion has already brought
this to my attention, but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to speak with her about it. Is this related
to Kachiko’s absence, somehow?”
“Again, I do not know. What I do know, however, is that the blade has been cursed, having
drawn the blood of the Emperor.”
Toturi stared, unable to find words. Yoshi waited.
He finally found his voice. “You are certain of this?”
“I am making these dire claims to the Emerald Champion. I would not do so if I were not
certain.”
“So... Shoju has usurped the throne, then.” As soon as he said it, though, Toturi shook his
head. “No. This makes no sense. He would have soon been Regent regardless... the Emperor was
about to abdicate in favor of his younger son, Daisetsu.”
“I do not presume to know the mind of Bayushi Shoju. Whatever his reasoning—which,
again, was no doubt convoluted—he murdered the Emperor. Whether his hand literally wielded
Kunshu, or did so figuratively, he wielded it nonetheless.”
“But... then why kill me? I am the one person who could authoritatively prove the legitimacy
of the edict declaring him Regent.”
“You are also the only person who could authoritatively declare it a forgery, since it was
supposedly written in your hand.” Yoshi offered a thin smile. “As I said, there are always winners
and losers, Champion. As a loose thread in Shoju’s monstrous tapestry, it seems you were meant to
be one of the latter.”
Toturi folded his hands in his lap. Monstrous. A perfect description. Shoju was guilty of a
crime that Imperial law didn’t even contemplate. Even treason, the most egregious Imperial crime
possible, seemed to fall woefully short.
Toturi stood, because he could not sit. He paced to the door, looked into the garden for a
moment, then back to the table.
“Shoju must answer for this, with steel,” he said. “I am the Emperor’s champion...”

817
 As soon as he’d said it, though, Toturi heard other voices speak up—Seppun Ishikawa; his
own wife, Kaede; even Shinsei, the Little Teacher, in the Tao.
There is the way the world ought to work, and then there is the way it really does.
Before hearing those words, Toturi would have been utterly convinced of the rightness of
challenging Shoju. But now...
He let out a breath and shook his head. “No. Should Shoju win a duel against me, it would
forever establish the legitimacy of what he has done.”
Yoshi touched his teacup. “The outcome of a duel reflects the wisdom of the Celestial
Heavens. You doubt their judgment?”
“Of course not, and if they offer it, so be it. But I will not seek it—at least, not by crossing
steel with Shoju.”
“So what will you do?”
Toturi looked back into the garden. “I do not know.”

What had begun as reflection had become words spoken aloud to Sumiko. Now, Toturi fell silent
and just looked across the Bay of the Golden Sun. Lady Sun shone down with glorious splendor,
turning the waves to liquid gold. But the cold wind persisted, hissing across the rock, through the
yellowing grass.
“I, too, did not know what to do, my Champion,” Sumiko finally said. She turned and looked
at Toturi. “But I must do something, and I cannot do it alone. This is why I asked to meet you here.
I have a great favor to ask of you.”
Toturi had been about to question Sumiko about Kunshu, but he put the matter aside to
answer her. “And what is that?”
“I wish for you to stand behind me as I betray my lord.”

“Grandmother,” Agasha Sumiko said, “I am ashamed.”

She looked up from the cracked stone of the ancestor shrine’s floor, through a soft haze of
incense smoke, at the tiny altar.
“I do not know what to do. That is why I have come for your help.”
She placed an old tantō, still sheathed, on the shrine. Her eyes stung, but not only because
of the pungent smoke. “I have learned that I am accessory to a terrible crime. But my duty to the

818
Throne remains clear.” She blinked. “So I am ashamed, because it is not my place to question such
a duty, only to discharge it as best as I can. But I am also afraid that I will fail to do so, because my
spirit is not committed—”
“Presumptuous of you, isn’t it?”
Sumiko turned, startled that someone had entered the shrine without her being aware. But
the old monk’s bare feet had made barely a whisper on the stone; now, he stopped, leaned on a
walking stick and offered a stiff bow to the shrine, then straightened and leveled his dark eyes on
Sumiko.
“Excuse me, Father,” she said, “but this—”
“Is a private moment, yes.” The monk narrowed his eyes, turning crow’s-feet into a maze of
wrinkles. “It is difficult, though, to hear a samurai not only prophesize failure, but do so regarding
her duty to the Throne itself.”
Sumiko stiffened. “I did no such thing.”
“You said that your spirit is not committed to your duty, implying that you are likewise not
committed to your lord, who presumably assigned it to you.”
“I second-guess no one, particularly my superiors—”
The monk waved a hand. “Of course you did.” With a grimace, he knelt beside Sumiko, his
knees cracking like dry wood. “I am Katsu, of the Ten Thousand Temples.”
Sumiko frowned. To intrude—indeed, eavesdrop—on someone seeking guidance from a
revered ancestor was not merely rude: it bordered on insult.
“And you are?” the monk asked.
Sumiko’s frown hardened. “I am Agasha Sumiko, the—”
“Ah! Granddaughter of Agasha Ichika.” The monk gave a slow nod. “This is interesting.”
“How so?”
The monk tilted his head. “Do you remember your grandmother?”
“I was young when she died, but... of course. She was a renowned Emerald Magistrate, and
someone I admired—” Sumiko stopped. Her fists had clenched, her willingness to offer courtesy to
this intrusive man, elder monk or not, nearly gone. “Why are you asking this? And what business is
this of yours, in any case?”
“Your relationship with your grandmother is none of my business, of course. My relationship
with her, however, is a different matter.”

819
 “Your relationship?”
The old monk nodded. “Your grandmother fought to maintain law and order in the Empire,
and I likewise fought for these things alongside her.”
Sumiko stared.
Katsu smiled. “Yes, this old man was once a samurai, adept in the way of bow and blade.
That was, as you might have guessed, more than a few years ago, now.”
“You were her colleague? A magistrate?”
Katsu nodded, then pointed at the tantō Sumiko had placed on the shrine, her only physical
connection to her grandmother. “That was her blade, yes? The last time I saw it drawn, it dripped
the blood of...” He paused. “Two,” he said, then raised a finger. “No... three bandits. One of them
might have been a rōnin.” He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
Sumiko looked at the sheathed tantō. “I did not know that. What else can you tell me about
her?”
Katsu smiled. “Many things. Most would be outrageous. Some would even be true.” He
winked.
Sumiko smiled back, but it faded. “You were close to her... more than just comrades-in-
arms.”
“We were... friends, yes.”
The way he said friends spoke volumes about his true relationship with her grandmother, but
that was none of Sumiko’s concern. What was, was the fact that Katsu was here, now, in this ancient
shrine tucked away in the back of the gardens of the Dragon guest house, in the Forbidden City. A
mere coincidence? Or something more?
The monk, it seemed, was thinking the same thing. “I said that meeting you here, now, while
you are seeking guidance from Ichika-shiryō, was interesting.”
“It is,” Sumiko said, then looked back at the altar. “Unfortunately, I do not believe my
grandmother has any answers for me, regarding what troubles me so.”
“I do not know the details of whatever torments your spirit, nor do I need to. But do not be
so sure your grandmother has no answers for you.” Katsu extracted a small scroll case, lacquered
and plain, from a pocket in his robe. He opened it and produced a wrinkled sheet of paper, which he
carefully unrolled. It was yellowed with age and brittle, and there was faded calligraphy on it.
“What is that?” Sumiko asked.

820
 Katsu offered it to her. “Read it.”
Sumiko gingerly took the paper. It was a poem written in the tanka style, similar to haiku,
but longer and more complex:

A maple tree grows

Upon the place of my pyre
So my love knows truth:
Beauty from sorrow, changing
Fate after the last leaf falls.

She looked at the monk. “Who wrote this?”

“The same hand that wielded that tantō also penned those words.”
“My grandmother?”
“I said that meeting you was interesting,” he replied, taking the page from Sumiko and
placing it beside the tantō. “Now you see why. In part, anyway.”
“In part?”
The monk nodded. “I have made the journey from my monastery to this shrine, your
grandmother’s favorite, every year since she died. That poem has been my companion each time, to
place on this shrine.” He gave a rueful smile. “But the journey is getting too difficult for these old
bones, so last year was to be the last time.”
“So, why did you come this year?”
“Because I had a dream. In it, your grandmother appeared as I remembered her, young and
full of fire. In the dream, she asked me to make this journey one more time.” He smiled again. “I
never could refuse her. So here I am. And here you are. Now, isn’t that... interesting?”
Sumiko stared at the old paper on the shrine, her thoughts tumbling like a fast river over
rocks. Her grandmother had been a dedicated magistrate, and a skilled warrior. But she had also
penned this poem. And, through a dream, she had asked Katsu, her friend, to bring it here one more
time, and he had done so on this day, while Sumiko was here...
“I must admit,” Katsu said, his face wistful, “I had assumed I knew who she meant by her
love. It turns out that she meant you.”
But Sumiko shook her head. “Not only me, Katsu-san. I am sure of that.”

821
 “I... would like to think you are right.”
Sumiko looked at the paper. “It is strange. I really did not know my grandmother well. As I
said, I was still quite young when she died. And yet, I feel closer to her than to...to anyone else.”
She looked back at Katsu, but also saw her grandmother, a formidable, no-nonsense woman, to
whom even her gruff and equally formidable father had readily deferred.
“Once,” Sumiko went on, “she caught me stealing sweet red bean paste. She told me I had
broken the law, and must be punished, so she arrested me. Then she sat me by the fire and sentenced
me to listening to her stories.” Sumiko smiled. “As a punishment, it failed, because they enthralled
me. But they also taught me about truth, and justice, and honor. She is the reason I am a magistrate.
I wished to carry on her legacy.”
Katsu pointed at the poem. “She seems to believe that you have, and that you will keep doing
what is true, and just, and honorable.”
“I would like to think you are right, as well... that she wrote this poem to express her affection
for you, but also to be the answer I seek.”
“And what answer is that?”
“That I can no longer serve the Throne.” She turned to Katsu. “And that means it is time for
the last leaf to fall on my pyre.”
The old monk unexpectedly took her hands in his. “Do not rush to such dire judgment.
Changing fate does not mean ending it. The truth she wished to share with you spoke of beauty after
sorrow. There is still more good you can do for the Empire.”
Sumiko nodded sadly. “There is, but not as long as I profess a loyalty that is false... a
dedication to a duty I do not believe.”
“There are other ways of expressing your repudiation of such things.” Katsu pushed his dark
gaze into hers. “Remaining true, just and honorable need not cost your life.”
Sumiko looked down at the tantō and poem. “If I simply speak out and walk away, I may
preserve my own integrity, but what will ultimately change? Such things can, after all, be
manipulated, twisted by those with the means and motives to do so to serve their own ends.” Her
hands shook, his frail bones trembling with hers. “And yet, I cannot allow things to simply remain
as they are, because then I would be living an egregious lie.”

822
 “Your grandmother punished you with words, and look at what effect they had upon you. A
life dedicated to justice and a daughter that she would look upon with pride. Do not underestimate
the power of words. To the right audience, what is said can change even the darkest fate.”
Tears welled in Sumiko’s eyes. “But what would be left for me, even if my testimony is
believed? What I have done is unforgiveable.”
“You do not walk this path alone,” Katsu said. “And as for after? There are many monasteries
that would be blessed with your wise experience and counsel. Does the Tao not say that the river
that flows through life neither begins nor ends? Perhaps you will be the next Katsu for the next
Sumiko.”
For a time, Sumiko sat quietly and looked at the poem resting in her lap. Katsu moved one
arm, adjusting his fragile knees beneath him.
Then, she did something unthinkable: she leaned into his arms and began to cry. His embrace
was gentle and comforting. Like her grandmother’s had been.

Sumiko ducked away from a gust of cold wind that swept across them from the Bay of the Golden
Sun. When it abated, she looked back at Toturi. “Autumn is ending, Champion. It is time for the last
leaf to fall.”
Toturi said nothing. The placid certainty in Sumiko’s eyes showed him that she had made
her choice. He envied her that calm conviction, that clarity regarding the rightness of what she
intended to do.
He stood and walked close to the cliff ’s edge. For a long time, he simply stared down into
the wind-whipped surf, pounding against the rocks below.
With nothing more than words, Sumiko intended to upend the political balance of Rokugan.
Perhaps she would find the personal peace she sought through atonement for her part in Shoju’s
treachery, but the strands of consequence that would follow her words were tangled into knots that
Toturi could not unravel. They all shared only one outcome: uncertainty and peril lay before the
Emerald Empire.
Was this truly where they now stood? On the edge of a precipice, and all they could do, now,
was choose the circumstances of their fall?
Toturi turned back to Sumiko. “What you propose would endanger the future of Rokugan.”

823
 “If I do nothing, the same is certain,” Sumiko said. “Who now is left to oppose Shoju’s
monstrous crime, if not the late Emperor’s chief servants? By standing by him, I have lent him an
air of legitimacy and credibility. Through my resignation, I will take away much of his power over
the Empire. Through my words, I will force the Empire to witness him as a traitor and a murderer.
I do not expect forgiveness for my complicity in his treachery, but if I can undo some of the harm
that I have caused then I am duty-bound to do so.”
Toturi looked back, across the wind-tossed Bay. A monstrous crime. It was the same way
Yoshi had described what Shoju had done.
He pulled his gaze back to the hard stone of the promontory, at the edge of the cliff just a
few paces away.
At the edge of the abyss.
An Emperor had died here...
He turned back again. “You are not the only one who has served him as Champion,
however.”
“I am not asking you to give up your position as I am, Akodo-sama. Your service to the
Throne since the murder of the Emperor has not been publicly known. Mine has. If you return to the
court supporting my accusations, it could be enough to break Shoju’s grip on the Empire.”
Toturi knelt back beside her. The Scorpion Clan Champion would not simply allow the court
to turn against him. Not when his brother’s blade had shown Toturi his cruel intentions.
This is not how the world ought to work.
“You would not ask this of me if you were not truly committed to it,” he said. “Shoju is
cunning, and I fear...” He stopped, poised on the brink.
He could still step back...
“As you said, my investigation has kept me out of the court and uninvolved in Shoju’s
schemes. I may have been Rokugan’s Emerald Champion, but I was never Shoju’s Champion. I
failed in my duty the night that the Hantei was murdered.” Toturi breathed deeply, and for a moment
silence hung between them. “Together, we will face the usurper, and play the roles we must play in
this terrible thing.”
Together, they would plunge into that abyss.

824
Agasha Sumiko acknowledged the Seppun Honor Guard flanking the entrance to the Imperial Court
Chamber as they bowed, but did not trust herself to return it. Toturi did so for them both, then slid
the great rosewood door aside, leading the way in.
Kakita Yoshi, the Imperial Chancellor, was standing, in the process of convening court.
Apparently annoyed at this interruption, he turned a glare upon the door from where he stood upon
the great dais, one level below the Emerald Throne itself. But when he recognized the late arrivals
as the Emerald and Ruby Champions, whatever he had been about to say remained unsaid. Instead,
he raised his fan and waited.
The rest of the Imperial Court—a multitude of courtiers and diplomats, scribes and
attendants and messengers, all arrayed in a precise assembly according to ancient custom—
immediately awoke into a cacophony of gossip: whispers like a breeze through leaves. Many had
likely assumed that with Sumiko taking on the duties of the Emerald Champion, Toturi was dead,
yet here he stood. Only the place of the Imperial Advisor sat empty.
Sumiko ignored them all, and steadfastly kept her gaze fixed on the only person who
mattered here.
Bayushi Shoju, Imperial Regent, sitting upon the Emerald Throne.
As Sumiko and Toturi approached the dais, the whispers fell quiet. Kakita Yoshi stepped
aside, the faintest hint of a smile visible at the corner of his mouth.
They stopped short of approaching the throne. Sumiko felt Shoju’s gaze upon them and lifted
hers to meet it.
“Champions,” Shoju said, “I assume you bring urgent business to the attention of the court.”
Sumiko answered by releasing her cloak, allowing it to drop to the floor and reveal her katana
and wakizashi, still sheathed within the folds of her sash at her left hip. An explosive burst of
whispers, that cut off just as suddenly, left a ponderous, expectant silence, like the instant between
the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder.
“Bayushi Shoju-dono,” Sumiko began, her resolve echoing in the expectant air. “I reject
your appointment as Regent. You have climbed to the Throne over the body of the Son of Heaven,
for whose death you are responsible.”
Shoju abruptly stood but said nothing. Sumiko did not hesitate or allow him such an
opportunity.

825
 “Kunshu, the ancestral blade of the Hantei is now cursed. You have sent it away, into hiding,
because it was used to slay the Emperor.”
Silence—
“Your regency is a Scorpion Clan Coup. And I have been complicit.”
—like the instant—
“In atonement for my part in your sins, I am no longer Agasha Sumiko, and you have no
Ruby Champion. Perhaps, in following Shinsei’s guidance, I will be redeemed in a future life.”
—between the flash of lightning—
Steel rang in Sumiko’s hand as her katana exited its sheath.
—and the roar—
“May you never find peace as your enemies hunt you down for the treachery you have
performed against the Emerald Empire.”
—of thunder.
A snap echoed in the emptiness, and Sumiko’s shattered blade clattered to the ground.

The Bayushi had taken a step, as though to descend from the dais, but now stood frozen as Toturi
stepped forward.
“As the righteous and noble Agasha Sumiko was complicit in your monstrous crime, so, too,
am I,” Toturi said, pushing his gaze into Shoju’s. “I penned the edict placing you upon the Throne
at the Emperor’s behest. But they were your words, not the Emperor’s... your will, enacted through
the manipulations of the Son of Heaven perpetrated by you, and your wife, the Imperial Advisor.
And that is why you sought to have Aramoro, your half-brother, kill me... so there was no risk I
could attempt to undo your monstrous deed.”
Toturi withdrew his sheathed wakizashi and tossed it unceremoniously to the floor.
“My lord, the Emperor,” Toturi went on, “is dead. You killed him. And now, because of it,
I have no lord.”
He turned his back on Shoju. As he did, his gaze passed over Kakita Yoshi, whose face was
hidden behind an upraised fan. Toturi did not have to imagine the grin that certainly hid behind it.
There are winners and losers in all things, Yoshi had said.
Which am I?

826
 The question rang in Toturi’s mind as he and Agasha Sumiko walked away, their backs to
the Throne and the court. The harsh echo of their footsteps upon the stone gave way first to
whispers—and then to growing pandemonium.
The Imperial Court of Rokugan collapsed into chaos.
Toturi ignored the racket, the gaping stares, the urgent questions, a shout from Ikoma Ujiaki.
He just walked on, past the clamoring ranks of courtiers, toward the man waiting for them by the
great Court Chamber doors. Seppun Ishikawa nodded to Toturi and Sumiko as they approached,
then gestured for the Honor Guard accompanying them to slide the doors open.
Two individuals, each bereft of family or title, passed through them. Neither looked back.

827
The wood and paper burst with a snap that sounded like bone.
The hole around her fist seemed to grin, and Mirumoto Hitomi struck the shōji screen again,
a howl escaping her throat. The walls of her bedroom seemed too far away. The dim shadows were
too black. The blood pounding in her ears too deafening. She smashed her knuckles through the
paper and lattice-wood door a third time before lunging at her daishō to chop down the lantern
sconces and slash scars into the tatami.
But the waves of fury dogging her rampage froze as she touched the silk-wrapped hilts. A
truth lay within those swords, though her rage kept it at bay. She was not a mindless tsunami. She
was a samurai. Like Agasha Sumiko.
Hitomi’s knees buckled and she sank to the floor, her blades clattering on either side of her.
She admired Sumiko for her effortless bravery in the face of opposition, her devotion that never
consumed her better judgment, her steadfast leadership. And now she was gone, her position
abdicated and her wisdom withheld. In decades of loyal service to the Empire, Sumiko had helped
shepherd stability amidst persistent tumultuous conflicts between the clans. Without an Emerald or
Ruby Champion, and with a treasonous regent upon the throne, who could keep Rokugan safe from
the enmities that were surely now rising to the surface?
The scene unfolded in Hitomi’s memory: Sumiko’s voice had been strong but her face
empty, her words a sword at the throat of Bayushi Shoju even as she mourned her role in his coup.
At the snapping of her sword—and the clatter of Champion Toturi’s as it struck the floor—the court
had exploded in chaos and the Regent had retreated. Before Hitomi could even take breath, Sumiko
was gone, a shell sucked out to sea before it could be picked up.

828
 That had occurred hours ago, and Hitomi had not stopped moving since. Sumiko had
retreated from the world, her shame so absolute that she would not even allow a visit from the
hatamoto who had so loyally served her. And now Hitomi was alone, left to salvage what peace
could be maintained in the capital when the Ruby Champion she so trusted had abandoned her to
seek atonement.
Mirumoto Hitomi flung off the gauzy outer layers of her courtly garb and pulled on her
armor’s protective underclothing. She drew her katana, slashing at a nearby tapestry, ignoring the
silk as it fluttered feebly to the ground. She imagined Shoju’s face on it. He had orchestrated the
coup that had forced Sumiko’s hand, and so she would walk the path of vengeance. It was what
Sumiko would have wanted, what she had sacrificed everything for. Hitomi would challenge Shoju
to a duel and strike him down while the Scorpion took their turn watching, motionless, as someone
they venerated fell. Ignominy and humiliation would rain down on the usurper as she towered above
his corpse, judging him alongside Heaven for his foul deeds.
“Katsumichi!” she called. The battered shōji-screen door slid open to reveal a guard-at-arms.
His face betrayed no awareness of Hitomi’s outburst.
“Yes, Mirumoto-sama?”
“Send a messenger to the lieutenants in the Army of the Rising Wave. Tell them to prepare
for battle. We will seize the palace and crush the Emperor’s murderer.”
Katsumichi bowed, but as the door closed, a firm arm jutted inside to interfere. Kitsuki
Yaruma entered, his jaw tight and his eyes flashing.
“I knew you would do something reckless,” he said. “Put your sword away.”
Hitomi recoiled at his words. She had almost forgotten her katana was still in her hand. She
slid it into its sheath, her throat clenching under his critical glare. Turning away from Yaruma, she
kicked open an ironbound chest containing her green-lacquered armor. “Do as I say, Katsumichi-
san. Go now.”
Yaruma frowned as the guard disappeared down the hall. “Listen to me, Hitomi-sama,” the
Dragon ambassador said, sliding shut the battered door behind him. “This is no time for violence.”
She picked up her first piece of kusari mail, not meeting his gaze. “Did you not hear
Sumiko’s testimony? Shoju murdered the Emperor!”
“I did hear. And in this unprecedented crisis, we cannot afford to act irrationally.”

829
 Hitomi shrugged into her armored vest. “I’m not acting irrationally. I’m acting preemptively,
as we should have done on the night the Emperor was murdered. The usurper must not flee the
capital and hide in some dark corner of the Empire. He will not escape justice.”
“You act in anger, not in justice,” Yaruma hissed, waving his hand toward the wrecked room.
“What are you planning on doing? Taking the palace by force? Killing Shoju?”
“Why not? We must purge the palace of its traitors. We cannot allow a murderer to maintain
his bloody grasp on the throne.” Somehow, the laces of her cuirass kept slipping past the reach of
her fingers.
“Of course we will act. But you do not have the power to make those decisions on your own.
We must follow Heaven’s will and use the strength of the law against Shoju. Allow the Imperial
Chancellor to challenge the Regent.”
She seized the unruly cords of her dō and fastened them tight. “We are no longer distant
observers from our mountain peaks, Yaruma. We are in the thick of it. Sumiko did not shy away
from what had to be done, and neither will I. I will duel Shoju, and I will kill him.”
“If that were the correct way, then why didn’t Sumiko take that road instead of protesting
his presence? Why did she choose to retire instead of dueling him or ordering you to storm the
palace with your army? She very easily could have.”
Hitomi paused. Yaruma’s question stung. She stared at the wall where the silken tapestry
had hung before she cut it down in her anger. There was a small slash in the wood where her blade
tip had glanced it. She snatched her helmet from her trunk. “It... could not be helped. Sumiko was
already consumed by Shoju’s treason. Now that his sin is known to all, I will slay him and restore
the honor of Rokugan’s throne.”
“This is not just about honor or dishonor, Hitomi. As I said, this is about justice. Justice
would not be upheld if Shoju were to die in a duel in the name of revenge. His crimes were not
merely against Sumiko or the Dragon, so they are not yours to punish. Your insistence on doing so
wanders toward the paths of the three sins. Fear. Desire. Regret. Shoju’s crimes are against Heaven
itself, and therefore, he must answer to Heaven’s demand for justice. As Dragon, we must seek to
restore this balance.”
“But how can we possibly know how to do that?” Hitomi snapped. She put on her helmet
and straightened its nape guard before turning to face Yaruma.“With such profound corruption in
the highest offices of the Empire, with both the Emerald and Ruby Champions gone, who can we

830
trust with enforcing Heaven’s laws? We no longer have the assurance of Togashi Mitsu’s spiritual
guidance since he’s disappeared.”
The ambassador’s hard face grew grave. Hitomi lifted her chin at his unease. Mitsu’s
seemingly impulsive desertion had all the Dragon questioning Heaven’s will. Where had he gone?
Had he known something the rest of them did not?
“You should not destroy what balance we still have, Hitomi,” Yaruma insisted. “A violent
military coup bent on retribution against the Regent can only introduce more chaos. Let the laws of
the Imperial Court—”
“—the cringing bureaucracy of the Imperial Court created this misfortune, Yaruma. I will
not allow Shoju to slip from the grasp of indecisive courtiers and their ridiculous formalities,”
Hitomi said. Fully adorned in her armor, she muscled by him and flung open the door. “When we
are finished, there will be nowhere for the enemy to hide.”
She did not bow as she left him behind, an impudence that she had no time to regret. Her
soldiers needed prompt orders if they were to take control of the palace before the false Regent had
a chance to slink away. Shoju would die this day, and she would be sure to send him to Emma-Ō
herself.

The towering main gate to the Imperial Palace cast long early evening shadows across the Army of
the Rising Wave. Hitomi stood stone-faced at the head of her troops, waiting for the doors to open.
Her soldiers, already stationed in Otosan Uchi due to Sumiko’s unwitting foresight, had flooded the
streets and sealed off all entrances to the palace within half an hour, not allowing even a single
servant to exit. In one more hour’s time, the sun would set on Shoju’s corpse. She focused on that
thought. That alone was her task. Yet Yaruma’s words about maintaining balance reverberated
beneath her concentration. Was this surety of purpose truly a mistake? Was she acting against the
justice she sought?
Mirumoto Raitsugu, one of her lieutenants, paced nearby, lost in his thoughts. Hitomi caught
a few of his muttered words. “Dragon armies...balance...strength of arms...”
“Silence,” Hitomi ordered, his sentiments echoing Yaruma’s too closely for her liking.
She squeezed her fists. No. Yaruma was wrong. This restored balance. This achieved justice.
The blood of the Regent for the blood of the Emperor. For the blood of every other person Shoju
must have silenced to keep his wicked grip on the Emerald Throne. She would sweep through the

831
Forbidden City like a cleansing wave to drown out the corruption lingering within its heart. Such
certainty roared in her ears, deafening her to any doubts, even Yaruma’s. All wickedness would be
snuffed out.
With the creak of ancient wood, the main gates yawned open. Before her stood a Crane
courtier. The courtier held a scroll toward her that bore the Imperial Chancellor’s seal.
“Mirumoto Hitomi of the Dragon,” she said, standing in her way. “The Imperial Chancellor
has asked that I admit you and your army into the Imperial Palace. He has prepared a writ of
allowance to permit you to legally enter with your army.”
Raitsugu bowed in respect for the chancellor’s document, but Hitomi did not look at it,
instead meeting the Crane’s gaze with firmness. She did not need Kakita Yoshi’s performative
consent to do what must be done. This was merely one more tiny obstacle to crush beneath her heel
before the real battle.
“Enough,” Hitomi said, her voice unyielding to any deference. “No more delays and
posturing formalities.”
The Crane’s mask of authority dropped and her eyes grew soft. She pressed the scroll into
Raitsugu’s hands and touched her fingers to her chest.
“Then listen to me, Mirumoto-sama, a fellow daughter of an Empire who has lost its father.
I am just as heartbroken as you, but I beg you not to draw your sword in this palace. Surely, we do
not need more death in a place already mourning such tragic loss.”
Despite the pressure aching beneath her ribs, Hitomi did not balk at the Crane’s appeals to
sentiment. Shoju’s mastery over such courtly sensibilities had allowed him to deceive everyone,
including Sumiko, giving him power to manipulate her, steal her honor, and destroy her.
“I am here to slay a murderer,” Hitomi declared, marching through the doorway. “Once he
is gone, no more innocent blood will be spilled.”
She signaled to her bushi inside the palace courtyard.
“Guard every entrance and seize control of every wing!” she commanded. “Take custody of
anyone you come across and hold them for questioning. Cut down anyone who prevents you from
seizing the Regent’s suites. Leave Shoju to me!”
“Please, Hitomi-sama, have mercy,” the courtier cried.

832
 But her gentle voice sounded far away, swallowed in the advance of the army. Hitomi rushed
up the steps alongside her warriors and into the palace, leaving the courtier and her reproaches
behind.
The thundering feet of her soldiers echoed inside the usually still palace as they flooded
every corridor. Hitomi marched up the stairs toward the suites of the Regent, sword at the ready.
However, she crossed blades with no one.
Every turn of the passageways revealed them to be empty and silent. Though the sharp clack
of flung-open doors and her troops’ shouted orders echoing throughout the building revealed that
there were occupants in some of the rooms, no one resisted. Every servant, courtier, and samurai
stood aside to watch as Mirumoto Hitomi and the Army of the Rising Wave drifted through the
Imperial Palace’s silent halls unopposed.
The silence chafed at her. She swallowed as a tremble shuddered in her stomach and her
heartbeat grew loud in her ears. Where were the traitors? Where were the servants of corruption that
she and her troops would cut down in the name of the Emperor?
“Where are they?” she hissed.
“Perhaps the chancellor has ordered everyone to stand down,” Raitsugu replied behind her.
“How are we to know who stands with Shoju?” Hitomi said more to herself. “How dare he
interfere with our assault!”
“He may be avoiding unnecessary fighting.”
“Unnecessary?” Hitomi paused. Hearing the confusion in her own voice jarred her. Without
the outlet of battle to feed it, the churning unease in her stomach intensified and a slight sweat grew
dank across her brow. Had Yaruma been right? Had she been guilty of the three sins? Afraid of the
finality of Sumiko’s abdication? Dogged by her regret at not having had the power to stop any of
this? Swept up in her desire for revenge? She let the point of her blade drop. Had she made a
mistake?
“Hitomi-sama,” Raitsugu said, his words barely registering amid her confusion. “We have
nearly reached the Regent’s suites.”
She growled at the thought of Shoju. He could not escape. He would pay!
“We come for his head,” she cried, waving her bushi forward. “Go!”
She tore down the hall and slammed open the doors to Shoju’s rooms. Several dozen
Scorpion bushi stood within, their hands at their undrawn swords as if waiting to see what she would

833
do. With a war cry, Hitomi leaped at them, her wakizashi slashing down the bodies in the narrow
foyer. The Scorpion fell back, some drawing their own weapons just in time to block lethal blows,
others falling to the Dragon army’s charge. The scent of blood and the sound of bodies smashing
against the gilded paper walls filled the room. She drove the guards to the ground with a whirlwind
of steel, roaring as she trampled across their bodies to reach the inner chambers.
She crashed through the final door. There, kneeling upon the tatami floor sat Bayushi Shoju,
his face-covering mask scattered with shadows from the dark chamber. Beside him sat a child, a
boy whose mask mirrored that of his father’s. For a sudden, brief, moment, the child looked into
Hitomi’s eyes and she saw love that was quickly eclipsed by fear. He knew doom had come for his
family and he would be powerless to stop it. Just as she had been. When she locked eyes again with
Shoju, it was as if her long-dead older brother looked back at her.
The Regent held no weapon. He stood cautiously, betraying no indication of fear, his palms
open toward her in peaceable compliance.
“Mirumoto Hitomi-sama,” Shoju said, his unmistakable voice as calm as stone. He bowed
politely. “You surprise me with your presence. I was expecting the Lion.”
“The Lion?” she repeated, confused.
“In retaliation for the Emerald Champion’s disgrace,” he continued. “Even if they did not
love Toturi, I assumed their ferocity would drive them to avenge one of their own. I did not think it
would be the Dragon to stage the first military coup in Rokugan’s history. But it seems I was
mistaken about a great many things.
“You are here for your own revenge.”
“I—” She paused.
Yes. She was here to end him. To avenge the Emperor! Her lungs heaved with ragged breath,
and her arms strained, longing to plunge both her blades deep into his chest.
But his son was here. Bayushi Dairu was no older than she had been, when her brother Satsu
had been so unceremoniously crushed by the Crab heir’s tetsubō. Despite all the years that had
traversed since that fateful day, she could still smell the wind that had blown over his corpse and
the pain in her throat as she screamed after his departure to Meido. Tears suddenly burned in her
eyes.
Hitomi loosened her grip on her swords. The rage within her screamed in protest. It bucked
and roared like a caged animal and crashed about her spirit like a manic storm. It demanded blood.

834
It shrieked for her to tear down the palace and destroy every corner of Rokugan where Scorpion
insurrection and schemes could hide!
Instead, she spoke, her words cutting through the surging waves of her rage as she blinked
away her tears.
“I am not. You are under arrest for the murder of the Emperor. The Dragon are here to take
custody of you to deliver you to the justice of the Imperial Chancellor.”
The Regent stood silently. His eyes strayed to the fallen Scorpion bushi behind her. Then he
bowed his head slightly.
“I willingly enter into the Dragon’s custody, Mirumoto-sama,” he said.
She signaled for her bushi take the Scorpion usurper away. She pressed a sword-burdened
fist against the sweltering fury still churning in her heart and swallowed the bile that crept up her
throat. Justice, not revenge. Heaven’s justice, as Sumiko had called on. Dairu was escorted out along
with his father—he would be taken back to the Scorpion to remain in their care. The Hantei’s blood
was not on his hands.
Raitsugu ensured the Regent was securely guarded before approaching Hitomi.
“I thought you were going to kill him, Hitomi-sama,” he said warily.
She turned away, wanting to avoid the obvious question in his statement. Speaking might
shatter her composure, and she could not afford to lose face in this moment of Dragon victory.
It had been her intent to cut Shoju down. Had his son not been here when she arrived, it was
likely that she would have done so. But what would Dairu’s fate have become, had that happened?
He would have watched, powerless, as a renowned warrior cut down his father without hesitation
or mercy. He would never forget that moment, the sight of green and gold and steel and the pain of
his own cries of protestation. It was not a fate she could force upon the child.
Up until she had seen Dairu, Hitomi had given in to the path of least resistance, allowing her
rage to sweep downhill like a flood. Relinquishing herself to the temptation of simple, reckless
revenge, she had forced her way into history as the only general to have stormed the Imperial Palace.
But, when faced with the full consequences of her vengeance, she had faltered.
“Even the sea must bend to the will of Heaven,” she answered Raitsugu through clenched
teeth.
Rage still boiled inside of her, every muscle aching to cut Shoju down. Was arresting him
instead really the right path to tread? She looked at the empty mat once more before escorting him

835
toward the assembly hall, where she knew Yoshi would be waiting for news of her actions. She
grimaced at the thought of the relief she would see on his face, but that sourness was mere pride. In
the end, she had made the decision she thought was right. She had pursued justice, as Sumiko had.
Justice for Shoju’s victims. Justice for the Emperor. Only time would tell if this was the right choice.

836
The snow was getting thicker.
Mitsu wasn’t worried for himself—not yet, anyway. But Shahai wasn’t as accustomed to
hardship as he was, and Daisetsu...
Not those names, he reminded himself. Kane and Akio. Simple names, simple clothing,
simple hairstyles. Those were the tools with which he had to hide a Unicorn hostage and a missing
Hantei prince.
Oddly, it wasn’t the first time. He couldn’t remember who it was he’d traveled with back in
the seventh century, but he’d done something like this once before. Those fragmented memories
suggested that Kane and Akio were being a good deal more cooperative than his companion back
then.
If anything, they were too cooperative. Daisetsu—Akio—had insisted from the start that
they avoid samurai as much as possible. His ostensible reason was a desire to see how ordinary
people lived, but Mitsu knew there was more to it than that. When necessity forced them into a small
town for supplies, he found out why: the Emperor dead, Daisetsu proclaimed heir, Bayushi Shoju
his Regent until he came of age.
“Do you mistrust the Regent?” Mitsu tried to ask. But Daisetsu refused to discuss it.
They were just inside the edge of Dragon lands now. Signs of foul weather had forced Mitsu
to call an early halt to their travel, while they could still take refuge in an abandoned monastery. He
couldn’t persuade the presumptive Emperor to abandon his journey and return to Otosan Uchi, but
he could at least make sure the boy didn’t freeze to death in a snowbank.

837
 Every samurai in Rokugan would condemn me for helping him, he thought. They would say
that his duty transcends any personal desire he may have. Mitsu even agreed with them. But at the
same time... Togashi-ue had chosen Mitsu as his heir in part because of the breadth of experience
he’d gained, traveling the Empire. What if Rokugan needed an Emperor with the same knowledge?
He’d paused for long enough that snowflakes were beginning to build up on his shoulders.
Mitsu shook himself and returned to gathering wood. If the snow lasted as long as he feared it might,
they would be trapped at the monastery for a full day, maybe two. At least they had enough food,
even if Shahai—Kane—had been forced to beg for some of it.
She hadn’t even objected to lowering herself like that. The longer those two spent away from
the confines of court, the less they bothered to hide their affection for each other; she would do
almost anything for her love. Which was another thing Mitsu ought to put a stop to. But Daisetsu’s
willingness to accept his presence was already tenuous enough that Mitsu didn’t want to scare them
into running away.
His arms full of firewood, Mitsu directed his steps back toward the monastery. The
thickening clouds and descent of the sun meant the woods were growing steadily dimmer—but not
so dim that he couldn’t see the tracks breaking the glittering blanket of snow.
Mitsu dropped his burden and shucked off the cloak and robe that covered his tattoos. The
world sprang into sharp focus, built of more than just hearing and sight. A sizeable group; he picked
out five individual scents. Unwashed bodies, carrying a freshly killed deer. Bandits? It was easy for
such people to hide in the mountains, with so many abandoned areas. There was no one for them to
attack, though, on an out-of-the-way path like this one.
There was usually no one for them to attack.
Mitsu knew, even as he began to run, that he was too late. The scents were old enough that
if the strangers had been headed for the monastery, they’d already arrived. But he ran anyway,
praying to the Fortunes that he hadn’t made a fatal mistake.
The breeze brought woodsmoke to his nose, but no human blood. Instead there was...
roasting meat? As the monastery came into view, he heard voices, pitched for ordinary conversation.
One of them was Daisetsu’s.
Giddy with relief, Mitsu slowed. They were still in danger; any encounter not carefully
planned for was a risk. But Daisetsu was still alive.

838
 He realized, as he stepped up onto the creaking veranda, that he’d left his cloak and robe
behind. Even if he hadn’t already betrayed his presence, though, he wouldn’t have been willing to
go back for them. Not before he got answers.
“I’m coming in,” he called out, just in case someone inside was armed and jumpy. Then he
slid the door open, forcing the warped wood along its track.
Shahai—Kane—was on her feet, hands clasped to her chest in relief. Behind her, Akio sat
with the five strangers Mitsu had scented. They both looked tense, but with wariness rather than
outright fear. The strangers had clearly been told about Mitsu, because none of them drew the
weapons they bore.
Two rōnin, a man and a woman, marked by the daishō they wore. The other three appeared
to be peasants, and one of them had an unstrung bow propped up at his side. Presumably he’d
brought down the deer whose meat was now roasting over the fire. Mitsu’s mind reflexively played
out the possibilities: he could call on his tiger tattoo, go first for the female rōnin—she looked the
more hardened of the two—then the male one. By then the archer might have strung his bow, and
the ceiling in here was high enough for him to use it, but Shahai wouldn’t sit still while Daisetsu
was threatened. He just hoped neither of the other two peasants was actually a rōnin shugenja.
Akio stood up. “Minoru-san, I’m glad you’re back. These travelers were caught by the storm,
like we are, and asked to share our shelter.”
“Minoru?” the male rōnin said, not bothering to hide his disbelief. “You’re Togashi Mitsu.”
There were disadvantages to being the most famous ise zumi in the Empire.
Mitsu folded one hand over the opposite fist and bowed. “Well spotted. But names serve
many purposes, and for now, the name that best serves my purpose is Minoru.”
“This is Ichirō-san,” Akio said, nodding his head at the speaker. “The other rōnin is Satto-
san. And these are Torao-san, Hoshu-san, and Yuki-san.”
The last peasant named bowed her face to the floor; like Ichirō, she must know that Mitsu
was the Clan Champion’s heir. But Ichirō didn’t follow suit, and it wasn’t hard to guess why—
because Mitsu recognized Satto’s name.
The strangers were a group of Perfect Land followers.
It didn’t have to be a problem. They were in Dragon lands, not Phoenix, and while Mitsu
found the Perfect Land Sect troubling, his concerns weren’t so serious that they precluded sharing

839
a fire while a snowstorm raged outside. But when one of the people around that fire was the
Emperor...
They must, at all costs, be prevented from identifying Akio and Kane. Mitsu hoped Shahai
had kept her mouth shut; she’d been working on scrubbing away her Unicorn accent, but it still
slipped through in moments of stress.
He nodded his head to the Perfect Land followers and said, “Our shelter will be warmer with
more to share it. Let us wait out the storm together.”

Akio did a good job of downing his meal of venison without gagging. Kane didn’t mind, and Mitsu
had long since learned that he couldn’t always adhere to vegetarian strictures in his travels, but
living in the Forbidden City had given Daisetsu no exposure to the “autumn leaves” that formed a
significant part of the peasant diet in Dragon lands.
If Mitsu hoped that experience would make Akio shun the newcomers, though, he was
profoundly disappointed. Daisetsu had committed himself to experiencing life outside the Imperial
Court; they’d had strenuous arguments over Shahai being the one to beg for alms, Mitsu only
winning out when he insisted it was a matter of personal safety. With the eight of them trapped
inside a crumbling monastery while a snowstorm raged into the new day, into the new day, there
was no chance the others would not see Akio’s face, and if held himself too far apart, it might seem
suspicious.
But does he have to question them so eagerly?
Not that the strangers were very forthcoming with their answers. Satto, Mitsu knew, was
very highly placed in the sect. Anything that put her on the road must be fairly significant, and the
direction of the tracks he’d seen told him they were returning to Dragon lands, not leaving. But
where they’d been, and what they’d been doing...
“The Perfect Land? What’s that?”
Kane, sitting close by Mitsu’s side, jerked as if she wanted to leap up and say something.
“Don’t,” Mitsu whispered, even though he wanted to do the same thing. Of course Daisetsu had
never heard of the Perfect Land: who in Otosan Uchi would tell him? Trying to prevent him from
hearing, though, would only set off warning bells in the others’ minds.

840
 So Mitsu was forced to watch as the juvenile Emperor listened to Ichirō’s explanation.
Shinsei, the Perfect Land, the kie that was their mantra. The Age of Declining Virtue, and the failings
of samurai that were behind the Empire’s many woes.
The whole time, Mitsu felt Satto’s gaze on him. Waiting to see if he’d object.
Mitsu gritted his teeth. The storm can’t last forever. Once they were on the road again, he
could give Daisetsu more context, all the theological arguments and historical considerations Ichirō
was leaving out. Daisetsu had a curious mind; he would appreciate the contrasting information.
Someone should have arranged for him to be educated by the Asako—or the Kitsuki.
But it fed all too well into the problems that already drove the boy. Ever since they’d left the
Imperial Capital, any time Mitsu or Shahai brought up something related to Bushidō, it sparked a
rant from Daisetsu, tearing into the hypocrisy of samurai. The last thing he needed was Satto
chiming in, suggesting that the whole edifice of honor was flawed. Then it was Akio’s turn to sit in
watchful silence as Satto and Ichirō argued, and Yuki crept around them trying to keep the fire
going.
They needed more wood; Mitsu had never retrieved the pile he’d dropped. It would be wet
by now, but he might be able to find some that was dry—and besides, he would need his robe and
cloak again later.
When he excused himself and stepped outside, Kane followed him. “Are you going to do
anything?” she demanded in a low voice.
Mitsu gestured for her to move farther down the veranda, away from listening ears. Beyond
the roof ’s edge, the snow fell in a steady, muffling curtain. “It isn’t safe to move on.”
“I can manage. And with the two of us, we’ll keep him safe.”
“We can’t risk it.”
The muscles of her jaw stood out as she clenched her teeth. “Then at least stop him from
listening to that poison.”
Mitsu shook his head. “That would draw even more attention to him.”
“Then draw attention to yourself instead! Do something weird. Recite a koan or—or—
whatever it is you people do.” Shahai was forgetting herself in her worry; her Unicorn accent was
slipping back in.
“It’s only for a short while,” Mitsu said. “And don’t forget, Akio’s goal is to reach
Khanbulak. We’ll have plenty of time to talk to him afterward.” For his own part, he was still hoping

841
to persuade Daisetsu to remain in Dragon lands. There were plenty of monasteries—inhabited
ones—where he could spend time away from samurai and debate philosophy to his heart’s content.
If they reached Khanbulak, from there it would be only a small step to leave the Empire. Whatever
Daisetsu’s path might be, Mitsu couldn’t accept that it was to abandon Rokugan entirely.
“You should get back inside,” he said. “I don’t want them wondering what we’re talking
about. And we shouldn’t leave him alone in there.” They’d already recognized Mitsu. So far he’d
heard no rumors that he’d absconded with the Imperial Heir and a Unicorn hostage... but the moment
someone suggested that, it would be trivially easy for them to figure out where Daisetsu had gone.
The last time I did this, I don’t think I was quite so recognizable.
The reminder that they’d left Akio alone got Kane moving. Mitsu awakened his wolf tattoo
and set off to find his buried clothing and some firewood—but inwardly, he wished Togashi Gaijutsu
had inked him with something that could get them out of this trap.

Mitsu remembered being Daisetsu’s age, more than once. In almost all of those lifetimes, he’d spent
those years at the High House of Light, but for some of them he’d been training elsewhere as a bushi
or a courtier, or living as a peasant, not yet realizing his path would lead him back to the monastery.
He remembered very well the excitement of feeling a new world opening up before him, full
of thoughts his mind had—so far as he knew at the time—never thought before. It went with being
young.
He wished now that Daisetsu were a few years older, or younger. Anything to take him out
of that age where a new idea could light his soul on fire.
The storm was subsiding at last, but too late. Mitsu was scooping snow into a bucket to melt
for water when Akio and Kane came up to him. Kane’s posture told him there was a problem even
before Akio opened his mouth.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Akio said.
“Oh?” Mitsu said, apprehension tightening his gut.
“With the snows starting this early, there’s no way we’ll be able to reach Khanbulak any
time soon. It would be dangerous to even try. But that’s all right, because Ichirō-san has offered us
shelter for the winter, with his people.”

842
 “We can’t,” Kane snapped, in a tight voice that didn’t go beyond the three of them. “They’re
heretics, Da—Akio. And it may sound romantic to you, spending the winter in a peasant village, but
I promise you’ll think otherwise after the first month.”
The glare he shot her was the angriest Mitsu had ever seen him direct at his Unicorn love.
“Don’t tell me what I will and will not think. I said I wanted to experience something different, and
I meant it. I refuse to be a hypocrite like all the rest of them. If you don’t want to stay with me, that’s
fine; go back to your family. I’m sure Minoru-san can get you there.”
As if Mitsu had any intention of leaving Daisetsu alone among the Perfect Land Sect. “Akio-
san, there are things you don’t know about them. If any of them recognize you, they might not
hesitate to use you for political leverage. If they have recognized you, then this offer might be the
first step in making that happen.”
“They haven’t. I’m sure of it. Who would believe it, anyway?”
Mitsu wasn’t nearly so sanguine. But Shahai had gone snow-pale at the suggestion that she
abandon Daisetsu and return to her family; he knew she wouldn’t argue more. Not today, anyway.
And for all Daisetsu’s insistence that he wanted to leave behind his rank and his upbringing and
experience life as a different person, he didn’t hesitate to shout Mitsu down when the two of them
disagreed.
Which meant they were both going with Ichirō. Unless Mitsu subdued them both, right now,
and dragged them off through the snow. Then hoped none of the Perfect Land people tried to follow
them.
“Let’s go talk to them,” he said.
Back in the monastery, Ichirō and Satto were waiting. “It’s very generous of you to offer
shelter for the winter,” Mitsu said. “Especially in these hard times. Are you sure the three of us
won’t be a burden to you?”
As he expected, Satto twitched. “The three of you? But—you’re the Clan Champion’s heir.”
He bowed to her. “As I said when we met, for the moment, I am Minoru. And I believe the
snowfall that brought us together here is the work of karma. I would be honored to accept your
hospitality... should you be so kind as to offer it.”
“Of course,” Ichirō said. “We can’t offer much, but—”
“Ichirō-san!”

843
 It seemed there was dissension in the other side’s ranks, too. But interestingly, Ichirō must
hold at least as much clout as Satto, because she didn’t overrule him. Instead the two of them glared
at each other, holding a silent argument, until Satto said grudgingly, “The food will be very plain.
And not much of it.”
“I do not mind hardship,” Mitsu said.
“Neither do I,” Akio echoed.
You will, Mitsu thought. For all Daisetsu’s fiery ideals, he was wholly unprepared for what
he was getting into.
Mitsu could only hope that would sharpen the boy’s mind, instead of dulling it. He himself
would need every scrap of intelligence and quick thinking he could bring to bear if he was to prevent
the Crown Prince from casting aside the future of the Emerald Empire.

844
“I dreamed,” Doji Toin said, clutching his bamboo flute, “that I have a son.”
Yūgure’s head, silhouetted against the crackling bonre, tilted slowly to one side. “And do
you not have a son, Toin-san?”
“No. I have two lovely daughters, but no son. I always thought I—” He shook his head. “No,
I have no son.”
He felt Yūgure’s gaze on him, a keen awareness emanating from the deep shadow beneath
a broad, conical hat.
“Why did you come here, Toin-san?”
“You know—” Toin began, then looked down to the damp soil upon which he and Yūgure
sat cross-legged. Although he couldn’t, for some reason, clearly remember how he’d come to be
here, he knew why he had. He looked back up at the unseen face, framed by the inconstant glare of
the bonre beyond. “You know why I am here.”
Again, slowly, Yūgure tilted his head, this time the other way. “Do I?”
“Yes, I... I want you to teach me music. Music as good as that which you taught me last time.
Better, even.”
The jingasa lifted slightly, and Toin could see Yūgure’s mouth—thin, pale, lifted in an even
thinner smile. “Well, then, better it shall be.”
Yūgure took the flute from Toin, raised it to his lips, and began to play.
His first note was the wind across the Doji Plains.
Now it was Doji Toin who slowly tilted his head, as the music unfolded from that first, pure
note. Sweeping away from the Doji Plains, Yūgure crafted the ocean, beating upon the shores of

845
Rokugan... thunder, grumbling along the desolate peaks of the Spine of the World Mountains...
water, plinking softly into hidden, mossy pools deep in the Shinomen Mori. Toin could only marvel
at the richness of tonal colors Yūgure coaxed from the flute, rendering its simple handful of notes
into an endless spectrum of sound—
But.
But, just on the edge of hearing, Toin thought he heard something else. Something...
formless, cacophonous, a blur of discordant, shrieking notes, an arrhythmic pounding of drums—
“Toin-san?”
Toin blinked. “I... I thought I heard—” His voice caught on the word music. Whatever he
had heard—if he’d actually heard anything at all—it hadn’t been music but, somehow, it also had.
The thin lips beneath the jingasa smiled once more. “Would you like me to play the piece
for you again?”
Toin stared for a moment, then shook his head. Just like last time, he remembered every
movement of Yūgure’s fingers, every nuance of breath, as though he’d just played the piece himself.
As though he’d known it all his life. “No, that will not be necessary.”
Yūgure bowed and offered the ute back to Toin, who rose, suddenly anxious to leave... to be
anywhere else. He nonetheless paused to offer a bow in return.
“I... appreciate this, Yūgure-san.”
The smile widened. “I know you do, Toin-san.”
Toin turned and hurried from the clearing, from the fire, from the enigmatic man he knew
only as Yūgure, and that wild, atonal music that he might, or might not, have even heard at all.

Toin opened his eyes, blinking, gasping. Sitting up, he flung his gaze around, seeing only darkness—
“Toin-kun?”
He turned to the voice. “Rina?”
His wife smiled through the wan moonlight filtering in from the terrace. “Who else would it
be, here in your bed?”
Toin stared into his wife’s question until her smile began to fade. He forced a smile of his
own. “I was... dreaming.”
“I know. You called out a name—Yuma, your grandmother. You were dreaming of her...?”

846
 Toin shook his head. “No. I dreamed... that we had a daughter, who we had named Yuma,
after my grandmother.”
Rina looked down at the futon. “You dreamed first of having a son, and now, a second
daughter.” She smiled again, but now it was wistful and sad. “Had we, I would have been pleased
to name her Yuma.”
Toin just nodded. Rina patted his arm.
“You were too good at tonight’s recital,” she said. “So much effusive praise has unsettled
you.”
“Next time, I will try to be less good.”
“Well, it will certainly be difficult to play something better than you did tonight.” She patted
his arm again. “Now, though, it is time to sleep.”
They settled back onto the futon, but Toin could only stare into the darkness.
Rina was wrong. It would not be difficult for him to play his flute better than he had at
tonight’s recital.
It would be impossible.

As before, Toin couldn’t quite remember how he had come to be here, in this gloomy clearing where
the bonfire ared and snapped. What he did know, though, was that he needed Yūgure to play another
tune for him, one with which he could entertain the court of Kyūden Doji. His last performance had
raised expectations for his next one to new heights; there had been a hint that he might even play
before the Clan Champion.
Yūgure smiled through the dim night-glow. “So, you seek music that is even better still,
Toin-san.”
Toin nodded. “Please,” he said, handing over the flute.
Yūgure raised the instrument, and began to play.
The piece was... beyond beautiful. Tears rolled down Toin’s cheeks, despite the skirling
dissonance that so clearly wafted in from beyond the firelight... despite the hints and glimpses of
liquid movement in the darkness that accompanied it.

847
Toin held his wife’s hand as they passed through the gate of Kyūden Doji. The castle’s wall had
been hung with a multitude of silver and gold lanterns, pushing back the warm soness of the summer
night.
“So, you are to perform for none other than the Clan Champion,” Rina said, squeezing Toin’s
hand. “I am so proud of you, Toin-kun.”
Toin nodded, but said nothing. After a moment of walking among the cherry trees that lined
the road to the castle gate, he felt Rina’s smile darken into a frown.
“Does something trouble you, my husband? Your performance tonight moved, well,
virtually everyone to tears. And now, you are not only to perform for our esteemed Champion, you
may even be selected to play for the Imperial Court itself.”
Toin took a deep breath, tasting the fragrance of azaleas and hibiscus on the warm night-air.
Another shakuhachi performer, a Kakita, had played tonight immediately following Toin. He had
found his own eyes stinging, brimming with tears as she had played, so intense was the desolate
passion woven through her performance. But only one of them would be endorsed by the Champion
to perform at the Imperial Court in Otosan Uchi—and Toin could not deny the Kakita’s formidable
talent. It went far beyond mere technical mastery of the shakuhachi; the Kakita had been no mere
artisan, but a true artist.
She had, in fact, been as good as he was, and perhaps better.
Stopping on a bridge vaulting over a placid stream, Toin turned to his wife, intending to say
these things to her... to tell her of his doubts, and seek the reassurance she invariably managed to
make sound convincing. He’d even formulated the words, but when he began to speak, something
altogether different came out of his mouth.
“Rina, why did we never have children?”
She blinked, apparently just as taken aback by the question as he was. “You had your music,
and I had my art.”
He looked down into the water, painted with moonlight and the glow of lanterns from the
castle. “I dreamed that we had a daughter.”
“And a son. Yes, you told me of this.”
He looked at her. “No. A second daughter.”
Rina looked into the night, and said nothing for a moment. Finally, she turned back, her eyes
bleak. “Perhaps you are coming to regret the choices you have made in life.”

848
 Toin quickly shook his head and squeezed her hand. “No, no, of course not. I regret none of
my choices.” He offered her the most sincere smile he could. “None of them.”
She smiled back and they resumed walking, but neither of them spoke any further along the
way back to their guest house.

“Ah, then you will need something most special to perform for your Champion,” Yūgure said.
Toin gave a slow nod, and thought of the Kakita and her splendid music. “Yes,” he said.
“Special. It must be the best performance I have ever given.”
Yūgure reached for the shakuhachi flute. “Then let us give you such a piece, suited for such
an auspicious occasion.”
The wild, dissonant blare and pound of shrill notes and harsh drums almost, but didn’t quite
drown out the breathtaking splendor of Yūgure’s music. Indeed, despite its mad discordance, it
somehow managed to thread its way seamlessly among Yūgure’s clear notes, as though rhythm and
discord each teetered on the verge of becoming the other. Even the random crack and spark of the
bonfire seemed to meld itself into the sound, weaving a magnificent whole. It was as though the
untamed cacophony was the raw stuff of music, the primal source from which all of it was ultimately
woven. And now Toin saw there was, indeed, movement all around them, half-seen dancers flinging
themselves wildly through the darkness.
And then it was done, leaving only silence and the crackle of the fire. Yūgure offered the
flute back to Toin with a bow. The Doji, sobbing, had to wipe brimming tears from his eyes before
he could accept it.

Toin stopped on the bridge vaulting the placid stream, and stared along the watercourse. Lantern-
light reflected from the looming walls of Doji Castle, glowing brightly from the mirror-still water,
edging lotus and water lilies with soft highlights. He liked this little bridge, especially on such a
gentle summer night as this, and often came here after a performance in the court to stand quietly,
and simply breathe.
It was a moment of both placid tranquility, and great triumph. He could still hear the Clan
Champion’s words that had echoed through the court.

849
 “You shall play for the Imperial Court in Otosan Uchi, Doji Toin-san. Bring to that esteemed
place the beauty of your music, that all might enjoy what is, I dare say, as near to perfection as any
I have ever heard performed.”
The Champion had even wiped at an eye, once. The Kakita, meanwhile, had made a
particular point of coming to him and offering a deep bow of congratulations.
A great triumph indeed.
But Toin had no one with whom he could share this triumph. He had given his life wholly
to his music, having never taken a wife, or raised a family, and that tempered his joy with wistful
sadness. He had only ever dreamed of such things.

“You seem hesitant, Toin-san,” Yūgure said. “Surely you wish to play music fit for the Imperial
Court... for the Son of Heaven himself.”
He nodded. “I do, but...”
The jingasa tilted against the blaze of firelight. “But?”
“But... I dream of... of a wife. Of a family I never had.” He looked into the night. “Just
dreams, though. At least, I think they are dreams—”
“But you have almost gained that which you sought, Toin-san, when you first came to me.”
“I do not... remember that,” Toin replied. “I do not remember seeking you at all—”
“Oh, but you did,” Yūgure replied. “You sought perfection in your music. It is all that has
ever truly mattered to you. And now, you have almost achieved your goal.” The smile widened,
loomed closer. “You stand within reach of the very perfection you so crave. Having come so far,
will you truly falter now?”
Toin looked at his flute, the bamboo polished smooth by years of handling, of playing. The
firelight gleamed against its barrel, making it glow as though with intense heat.
“No,” he finally said. “I have given...” He took a breath. “I have given my life for this.” He
looked back up, at Yūgure. “My performance for the Imperial Court... it must be perfect.”
“And so it shall be, Toin-san.”
He offered over the flute, but Yūgure shook his head.
“You do not need me to teach you,” the smiling mouth said. “You already know what you
must play.”

850
 He hesitated, frowning. But... he did. He did know. Lifting the flute to his mouth, he blew,
sounding a note. Another. A third.
Then more, the notes smearing into a discordant, atonal skirl, a rhythmless succession of
disconnected tones, rising to a piercing shriek, plunging deep into a basal abyss. What he played
was chaos, utterly formless, and utterly perfect for it.

851
“An Impossible Task” is an interactive short story in which the reader takes the role of a rōnin
undertaking their musha shugyō, or warrior’s pilgrimage.
The legendary General, Akodo Kyōsuke, recently repelled a Unicorn offensive against Four
Roads Village and Fallen Oak Village, while General Ikoma Tsanuri has recently found success
capturing Unicorn villages despite the growing desperation of her soldiers.
As a samurai on a warrior pilgrimage, the protagonist of this story is considered a rōnin, and
thus is eligible to serve General Tsanuri as a soldier in her army. They can come from any clan or
background, for their pilgrimage is dedicated to expanding their worldly knowledge through travel
and service. You never know what you might be called upon to do!
Recently, the Unicorn successfully retook Four Roads Village, and General Akodo Kyōsuke
has been captured. As a rōnin in service to General Ikoma Tsanuri, the protagonist of this story has
been ordered to attend the General as the remainder of the army prepares to retake the village. This
is where the story begins.
The story has branching endings, and the main endings were able to be registered with the
Legend of the Five Rings Story Team before November 16, 2020. A Single result will be chosen to
be the canonical ending and integrated into the official Legend of the Five Rings storyline. While
this date has passed, the story can still be played through by readers.

Please go to https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/11/2/an-impossible-task-4/ to play

through and read the short story. The results of the story are on the following page.

852
The Canonical ending was revealed on March 12, 2021, as part of the Heroes of Legend story.

You played as a rōnin on a warrior’s pilgrimage serving in a Lion Clan army. General Ikoma
Tsanuri tasked you with finding and rescuing Commander Akodo Kyōsuke from Four Roads
Village, or at the very least, ensuring that any sensitive information the commander may have been
privy to did not fall into the hands of the Unicorn Clan. For many, this indeed proved an impossible
task, but the sensitive information did make its way back to General Ikoma and the Lion Clan, and
the rōnin proved themselves an upright samurai by delivering the scroll unopened.

The results, and the percentage of respondents, were as follows:

❖ Commander Akodo Kyosuke was not brought back alive (75%)
❖ The Lion Clan did not recapture Four Roads Village (58%)
❖ The Scroll was intercepted from the messenger (79%)
❖ The rōnin did not read the scrolls contents (54%)

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Yogo Junzo’s father used to say that the Castle of Learning was not so much a fortress as it was a
prison for the poor souls and accursed artifacts sequestered there. But tonight, Junzo could only pray
that his misguided father was right on that account.
A desecrated heirloom of the Imperial line invited calamity on the one possessing it. As
daimyō of the Yogo family and the shugenja tasked with the safekeeping of Rokugan’s most
dangerous relics, it was Junzo’s sacred duty to safeguard the heirloom and contain its corrupting
influence until such a time as the curse could be lifted.
Yet several of the wards and prayer banners that protected the castle from evil spirits were
failing. The Yogo needed to enact a more powerful seal upon the heirloom before it called to nearby
servants of darkness—or worse, the oni lords of the Shadowlands themselves—to overwhelm these
walls and pillage the artifacts within. For to call upon the other clans for aid and reveal the fate of
the heirloom could irrevocably scandalize the Imperial line.
The ceremony began, heralded by the voices of his family’s eight most powerful and devoted
wardmasters joining in prayer. They stood facing each other in a circle, their simple robes adorned
with charms of protection and power. Each of the eight directions was watched over by a shugenja
who was charged not with keeping evil spirits out, but with keeping the evil spirit within.
At the circle’s center—barely visible through the thick incense smoke but for the orange
glow of flickering candles—lay the unsheathed, cursed blade. It was Kunshu, the ancestral sword
of the Hantei dynasty. What was once a symbol of loyalty had been twisted into an icon of treachery.
Though there was no breeze, the ten thousand paper wards that plastered the ceiling of the
basement chamber rustled, shivering in trepidation. From behind his mask, Junzo projected the calm

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confidence that would preserve the concentration of his fellow shugenja. Slowly, he approached the
blade, though his heart beat faster. He grounded himself with each step, calling to the ancient kami
of the earth who served as the castle’s very foundation and beseeching the steadfast kami of stone
that made up the walls around them.
Above and beside him, paper gods floated in midair, keeping silent vigil over the ritual.
These shikigami had dutifully served his family over countless generations. They would not fail him
now.
He closed his eyes, drew ever deeper breaths, and finally knelt before Kunshu. To discern
the precise nature of the curse and how it might be lifted, he would have to commune with the
baleful spirit that now dwelled within. What was the strength of his soul compared to a thousand-
year-old blade?
But he was not alone. He gathered the strength of the Heavens above and the Earth below,
the wisdom of Lady Sun and Lord Moon, and the courage of the Four Cardinal Guardians.
What I do, I do for the Empire, he reassured himself.
He reached for the blade’s handle.
Where his fingers touched the grip, hot anger and jealousy flared. Junzo was a young man
again, kneeling in the shadow of his lord and father. It could be decades before Junzo inherited the
title of daimyō, decades of waiting in the wings to be seen or to matter, even though Junzo had the
stronger innate connection to the elements!
Overhead, the sound of tearing paper—wards or shikigami or both—snapped Junzo back to
the present. He could not let the unquenchable emotion of the blade wash over him and onto the
ceremony’s defenses.
Junzo loved his father, even after his fall. His father had taught him everything he knew, had
schooled him in the family’s ancient secrets and enabled him to become the shugenja he was meant
to be.
He called upon the remaining shikigami and felt their power buoying him, enveloping his
hands in spiritual armor.
He took hold of the handle with his right hand and gently lifted the bare steel in his left.
Searing heat radiated from the heavy sword, and blinding rage threatened to overtake him again,
urging him to take the weapon, to strike down his father, to assume his rightful place as heir.
No, came a voice.

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 Strips of paper -uttered through the air around him, only to land lifeless on the wooden
floorboards.
Junzo realized the voice was his own.
No, my father is already gone thanks to the curse on my head. You offer an empty temptation.
The fluttering became a flurry, a cascade of paper raining down on him. He inhaled sharply
but deeply, letting the sound remind him of the calm purity of a steady rain.
Within the bloodthirsty churn, Junzo sensed a speck of peace, an eye in the raging storm. Its
grace and beauty would yield, slowly but surely, to the overwhelming hatred around it. Despite the
danger, Junzo opened himself to the flicker of peace and offered it a fragment of his strength.
A profound sense of terror washed over him, as piercing as the hopeless cry of a child lost
in the dark. Without words, Junzo suddenly understood that the soul of this blade had tasted blood—
the blood of the line it was wrought to serve and protect. The horror and guilt of what it had done
was consuming the awakened spirit from within. It could not hold out forever.
Realization dawned on him. Only a Hantei could lift the curse. But there were no Hantei left,
or at least, none that could easily be found.
A memory came to Junzo unbidden. Something he had heard long ago, and should not have
forgotten. Whatever befalls Kunshu, so too shall befall its masters.
A startled cry, and then a terrible ripping sound.
Junzo could not wait for the sword to slowly tear down the castle wards, one by one. There
was the safety of even more terrible artifacts than Kunshu at stake.
He rose to his feet, lifting the sword above his head. “The samurai and servants of the Yogo
family will protect you!”
The shikigami quivered and paused, awaiting his next command. The shugenja raised their
voices until they were shouting, raising a barrier that would hopefully contain the energies that were
about to be unleashed.
“By the strength of the elements and the will of the Heavens, be thee sealed!”
The shikigami flew toward the blade like iron sand to a lodestone, enveloping the length of
steel in a paper sheath. The razor-sharp edge cut through the paper gods effortlessly, one after
another, but yet more shikigami took their place, slowly blanketing the steel and gently lifting it up
to float into the air.

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 It was working. The Yogo would need to bind more spirits to their service to replace those
they were losing, but that they could do, in time.
But it was not working fast enough. Like a wild horse, the wicked spirit thrashed beneath its
bridle in a desperate attempt to maintain its freedom.
More tearing sounds, and then the whoosh of something cutting through the air. A scream.
Yogo Junzo opened his eyes in time to see a wardmaster clutch his neck, and fall. Blood
gushed between the shugenja’s fingers.
A blood-stained ward jutted out from the wooden floorboards, half-embedded, like a knife.
Where the wardmaster had fallen, so too had the strength of their protective circle. Junzo
surrendered the blade to the care of the shikigami and rushed to fill the opening and resume the
chant, dodging a pair of acolytes who pulled the fallen shugenja to the side of the chamber.
Sensing the wound, the shikigami buzzed like insects around the blade. Before they were
bound in the Yogo’s service, they had been powerful spirits and monsters in their own right. The
wickedness of the blade taunted them to seek their freedom, too.
Between the prayers of protection, Junzo shouted, “As your lord, I adjure thee! Be at peace!”
The paper gods hesitated, pulsing like a human heart. Now he had to be the calm, be the quietude
of the spirit deep within the sword, even as he desperately continued the chant.
The pulsing slowed, and slowed, and then, the shikigami were still. The sword floated gently
back down to its stand.
When the sword finally stopped moving, the remaining shugenja sank to their knees, sweat
beading upon their brows, as they struggled to catch their breath.
Junzo’s heart yet raced. The seal would need to be renewed—at what interval, he did not yet
know. He had only bought the Empire more time. Perhaps it would be time enough to find one of
the lost princes and return the blade to him.

It was getting late in the small, nameless village, and Yogo Jiro was bored. The young man sucked
in his gut as he stood guard, even though no one was around to see him. A smooth, shiny black
beetle crawled over a hump of mud at his feet. He pulled down his mask to breathe in the crisp
autumn air, baring his smooth, boyish cheeks to the cold. Everyone in this miserable village had
already gone to bed. What was the point of standing guard?
“Poor Jiro...” Yasuhide said, far too loudly.

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 Hoping it was a summons, the young samurai bowed low to enter the house and stepped
inside to see the lord, his two courtiers, and the lord’s guest seemingly sprawled across the table,
red-faced and laughing. Two bottles of sake lay empty on the floor, and Yasuhide held a third
uncorked in his hand as he struggled to pour.
“I am disappointed you would let something so paltry as a blocked trade route delay my
audience with Yogo Junzo,” intoned Yasuhide’s guest. She was impossibly thin, with jet black hair
and skin so heavily made up it gave her face an almost porcelain look, though the lines on her neck
betrayed her old age.
“It is quite paltry. Though my lord thinks otherwise,” Yasuhide slurred. He leaned back and
smiled at the guest. “I can send my fastest messenger to the Castle of Learning by sundown
tomorrow!”
The guest let loose an ugly, nasal laugh, then grimaced.
“It is imperative that I speak with Lord Yogo Junzo in person.”
Jiro loosened his collar in the cramped chamber. The woman smiled vacantly as she emptied
her cup; she had the look of someone always in want.
“I could escort you to the Castle of Learning,” ventured Jiro.
Lord Yasuhide looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“Ah! Little Jiro!” he exclaimed, then seemed to lose focus. With practiced ease, Yasuhide’s
guest poured more sake and slid a cup toward Jiro, nodding for him to sit. The samurai waited for
Yasuhide’s permission before seating himself across from the pair of nobles, armor creaking. He
loomed over them like a giant.
“Not so little, is he?” the lord snorted. Jiro’s cheeks reddened.
“I think he is quite handsome,” said the guest.
Yasuhide chuckled and flashed a look at Jiro.
“Now now, Lady Atsuko. Jiro is betrothed. To a Yogo, no less!”
The young samurai’s attention wandered to a corner of the room where another black beetle
was crawling on the edge of a lacquer cabinet.
“Yes, Jiro can take you to the Castle of Learning. He has not seen his sweet cherry blossom
Yogo Kasume for weeks. I am sure he would be happy to reunite with his love.”
Feeling his cheeks -ush, Jiro raised a hand to hide his smile. The thought of seeing Kasume
again so soon made his heart soar. The room seemed to grow hotter as he sipped his sake.

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 “When is the wedding?” Atsuko asked in a sweet voice.
“In less than a month.”
“What joy! I love weddings,” the old woman smiled. Jiro wondered if she was mocking him.
It was difficult to discern her expression through her mask-like layers of powder and makeup.
Yasuhide snapped his fingers and asked an attendant to draft a letter of introduction, then
handed the sealed scroll to Lady Atsuko. Tottering drunk, he narrowed his eyes at the bottle of sake
on the table. “Where did you buy this sake, by the way? It is exquisite.”
“It was a gift,” Atsuko’s lips pursed to a fine line.
A black beetle landed lazily on Jiro’s right knee. The samurai flicked it under the table, then
sipped his cloudy, white sake. It was delicious.

The curious letter lay atop the prodigious stack of scrolls on Junzo’s desk. The messages had been
piling up ever since he had been forced to dedicate so much of his time to creating more shikigami
to augment the seal around Kunshu. For every hour that passed without creating new paper gods to
reinforce the seal, another ward protecting the castle was ruined. Although he had delegated as much
as he could to the castle staff, there were still many issues that required the personal attention of the
family daimyō. And apparently his seneschal had deemed that this was one.
He rubbed his eyes and drank deeply of the astringent green tea, which did less and less to
compensate for his nights robbed of sleep. How could he rest when all other family shugenja
continued to tax themselves to keep the sword safe, even while they still had no leads to go on for
locating either of the Hantei heirs?
He fought the dizziness of the fatigue and squinted to read the strangely sloppy cursive of
Yogo Yasuhide’s letter. “Lady Atsuko begs an audience with the venerable Yogo Junzo, and she
will be arriving at the Castle of Learning by sundown tomorrow with Yogo Jiro as an escort,” the
letter stated. “She claims to have some secret knowledge of the Shinomen Forest that must be shared
with the Yogo daimyō—in person. It concerns some threat from the Shadowed Swamps.”
The Shadowed Swamps, or the Shadowlands Marshes, as they were sometimes known. He
had not heard either name in a long time, not since his late master’s ravings—ravings that were his
undoing in the end.
Centuries ago, Iuchiban had been the leader of the Bloodspeaker cult that the Black Watch—
and by extension, the Yogo family—was dedicated to destroying. Junzo’s master claimed to have

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located one of the lost Masks of Iuchiban that were key to reopening the blood sorcerer’s tomb and
was intent on arranging an expedition to the Shadowed Swamps to recover it. Such an artifact would
be safe at the Castle of Learning, or so he had claimed. But in his efforts to track down the artifact,
Junzo’s father had become an unwitting pawn of the last vestiges of the cult.
Junzo had somehow believed that familial love would not be strong enough to become the
focus of the family curse—after all, that was why his father had disregarded the Yogo traditions that
distanced parents from children. But Junzo was forced to betray his own father after finding out
about the extent of the man’s dangerous obsession with Iuchiban. Junzo had been right to choose
protecting the Empire over protecting his father, but even after all these years, his stomach still
turned sour at the memory.
As much as it hurt to reveal his father’s weakness to the leader of the Black Watch, Junzo
had been grateful for the lesson. Thanks to his father, he had learned that not even a Scorpion
deserved unblinking loyalty. The duty of the Yogo daimyō was to the Emerald Empire as a whole.
And Junzo had the cold comfort of knowing that his curse to betray the one he loved most had
already manifested itself.
Could it be that Lady Atsuko offered a hint as to the fate of the mask or a resurgence of the
cult? But who was she, this woman who did not offer a family name or clan affiliation?
It was strange timing indeed, given his own divinations that hinted at a shadow approaching
from the Shinomen. He would have to see for himself upon her arrival, tomorrow, and ensure that
the ghosts of his father’s legacy were properly put to rest. Junzo could already hear the soft footsteps
of Captain Seppun Masayo approaching to deliver her evening report. In the short weeks she had
been in residence at the castle, the member of the Imperial Hidden Guard had already proven herself
a valuable addition, both as a soldier and as a shugenja. Shoju had entrusted her with delivering
Kunshu to the Castle of Learning, and lacking further instructions from the capital, she had decided
to remain with Kunshu.
“How bad is it?” Junzo asked as the woman bowed and took a seat opposite him.
“It is not good, Yogo-sama.”
Junzo nodded grimly.
“My dreams and divinations are the same. Ill omens and grim portents. Monstrous creatures
continue to mobilize in the mountains—ogres, goblins, trolls...”

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 “As we feared,” he replied. It came as no surprise that the Spine of the World Mountains—
the range that served as the Yogo provinces’ northeast border—were plagued by monsters. The
northeast was a permanently unlucky direction and home to one of the two so-called Demon’s Gates.
It was why their castle had no northeast-facing windows or doors, and why the monks of the ascetic
Penitent Order had built their temple to overlook the castle from that direction.
“And in the southwest lowlands, we believe bog hags and mahō-tsukai are congregating,
too. The castle’s scouts have caught sightings of oni’s fire in the marshes, and strange shadows that
do not work how they ought. Whole flocks of migrating ducks and geese have been found dead in
the bogs.”
From the southwest marched the horrors of the Shadowlands, which emanated from the true
Demon’s Gate, the Festering Pit. It followed that other forces of evil would gather from that
direction.
For the castle to be threatened on both sides...
Although they had done their best to seal it, Kunshu could still be a beacon to any who could
hear its wicked call, faint though it might be.
“Despite blocking the trade routes, some have attempted to use the road regardless. The
patrols have found mangled bodies, partially eaten...”
“Poor fools.” Junzo closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for the dead. “Captain Masayo,
I think it is time we notify the Regent of these dire developments.”
The Seppun’s eyes went wide, but without hesitating another moment, she saluted with a
closed fist over he heart and bowed. “Of course. It will be done.”

A shadowy mist rose from the river as Jiro made camp beneath a copse of bare black trees. His
breath billowed as white steam in the cold night air, and his legs and back ached from hours of hard
riding. Against a nearby trunk that was nearly as thin as she was, Lady Atsuko sat propped up and
smiling at him. Sweat beaded on Jiro’s forehead as he strung a line to hold up a meager tent, then
unrolled the Lady’s bedroll. Tonight, he would sleep staring up at the stars.
As he went about making the tent, he thought about the night he had asked Kasume to marry
him. He had prepared a picnic under the ancient cedars south of the shrine where his grandparents
lay buried. It had been a warm spring night, and she was still wearing black from her mourning, and
her face was radiant and flushed from the plum liqueur he had brought. She thanked him for his

861
kindness, and he took her hand in his and held her as she wept, and she said how safe he made her
feel, and he told her he would always protect her. The thought of holding her in his arms made him
misty-eyed.
“It is too cold,” Atsuko jolted him out of his reverie. Jiro took a moment to compose himself,
then resumed the placid tone he had learned she would not mock.
“Should we double back for the guest house over the hill?”
“They seemed too provincial to host us.”
“I will make a fire, then.”
“Just a small fire.”
The old woman was very odd. Before they had even left the village, Lady Atsuko’s smile
soured and she began picking at every misstep Jiro made as if it were a grave offense. When he rode
too slowly, he was lazy, and when he rode faster, he was too hasty. It was always one or the other.
But perhaps it was only his lack of sleep that made her seem so impatient.
A horrible shriek tore through the quiet. Jiro bolted upright to see Lady Atsuko holding one
hand to her mouth, eyes glittering in the firelight. He looked past the fire into the darkness. There
was nothing.
“I said just a small fire,” Atsuko seethed.
The campfire had grown to a healthy blaze licking at the branches and dead leaves Jiro had
fed it. He looked up at her plaintively.
“Put it out. I would prefer to be cold.”
The young samurai sighed. He was always being bucked around by the whims of others. He
trudged down to the riverside and returned with a bucket of water, brown with tannins. The fire died
with a hiss, sending up pillowy steam. Overhead, Lord Moon rose beyond a knot of branches, yellow
as parchment in the night sky. Tomorrow would be a full harvest moon.
“I think you are too large to be a Scorpion,” said Atsuko.
Jiro clenched his teeth. “Thank you for your sincerity.”
“I was told that every Scorpion is measured after they are born. The tall ones are shipped
down to the Kaiu Wall to become Crabs. Is this true?”
“I do not know what I have done to offend you, Lady Atsuko, but I apologize.”
A smile spread over the old woman’s thin, white lips.
“Everything about you offends me.”

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 Her words hung in the air for a moment as Jiro considered how to respond, but then the old
woman broke into a high, guffawing laugh. For a moment, Jiro felt confused, then broke into his
own halting, nervous laugh until she stopped suddenly, wiping tears from her eyes.
As Jiro collected himself, he saw a slight luminescence. Down at the riverbank, maybe fifty
yards away, a human shape stepped languidly ashore. Jiro rubbed his eyes. It glided closer, flickering
in the moonlight. Without a word, the samurai stood and placed one hand on the grip of his katana.
Next to him, Atsuko stood up with arms crossed, and stared into the dark. When she caught sight of
the pale figure, she flashed a wicked smile.
“Are you afraid?”
Too distracted to reply, Jiro stepped forward. The figure gave off a ghastly incandescence
and walked as if through water. A pair of piercing blue eyes glowed in the thing’s pale, thinly
masked face as it approached inexorably. His breath caught.
“Who is that?” Lady Atsuko drew her shawl tightly around herself, more curious than afraid.
Jiro asked her to step back, lit his torch, and held it high.
The silent figure stood just feet away. He wore Scorpion armor with a long black cloak, and
his belly was pierced through with arrows. Pale fire licked the edges of the phantom, as if he were
a burning scrap of parchment. What was visible of his once-handsome face was set in a cold, dead
stare.
The torch trembled in Jiro’s right hand as he passed it through the spirit. The flames wavered
as they licked at the apparition. Sweat ran down Jiro’s brow.
“Leave this place,” Jiro said in his most threatening tone. His voice sounded soft and boyish
in his own ears. Sucking in his cheeks, Jiro drew his mask over his nose and mouth, hoping the
leering fangs and tongue on the design would seem more intimidating. Still, the shade stepped
closer, bearing a scroll with a broken seal. He pointed at Jiro, widening his mouth to an eerie grin.
His loose jaw hung by a few rotted tendons and his blue-white skin had wasted away to expose a
perpetual smile framed by swollen, drooping lips. It looked, from the movement of his tongue, as
though he was trying to say something.
The young bodyguard drew his katana, then cut a sharp crescent. The phantom’s eyes,
flickering like tongues of fire, suddenly winked out as the apparition disappeared.

863
 There were no footprints, no marks in the mud where it had approached from the riverbank.
A wave of dread washed over Jiro, settling in his stomach. He sheathed his katana and turned back
to the campsite, where Lady Atsuko sat against her tree.
“Your ghost was burning.”
“That was not my ghost.”
“He seemed to have eyes for you alone,” Atsuko smiled.
Jiro sat down and made a small fire, then cupped his hands over it for warmth.
“If you let the fire grow too big, I shall rub your face in it,” the old woman said.
Setting his teeth, Jiro stared at her. She reminded him of his aunt, who had passed away two
years ago after stepping on a nail. He hoped the same would happen to Atsuko.
“I did recognize the ghost.”
“No,” she mocked.
“He was my childhood friend, Hideo. When the moon is full, he appears. He never says
anything. He simply watches me.”
“How did he die?”
“In battle.”
“Not every soldier becomes a ghost.”
“He was to be married, but then a summons from the provincial daimyō sent him on a
dangerous mission into Beiden Pass. He was killed on his wedding day.”
“Oh, that is horrible.” The old woman let out a high-pitched, obnoxious laugh. “And I am
sure you are too poor to pay for a thorough exorcism.”
The samurai pulled his mask down to breathe again. Although the phantom had disappeared,
he felt its numbness, and a gnawing hunger.
“I like your mask,” said Atsuko. “Because when you wear it, I forget how much you
resemble a large, ugly baby.”
“I am not the only one who wears a mask,” Jiro snapped.
Lady Atsuko’s eyes went glassy as she stared at him from the darkness.
“What did you say, boy?”
“I-I meant nothing.”
“You lack discipline,” Atsuko cooed as she began to file her nails a comfortable distance
from the fire. “I imagine that is why you have not gotten very far in life.”

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As they reached the final leg of their journey, Lady Atsuko fell blissfully silent, and they met no
travelers. Storm clouds pressed ahead of them, darkening their way as though the sun had never
quite fully risen.
In the west, however, the clouds didn’t quite reach the horizon. The sunset cast the rooftops
of the Castle of Learning in a dull ocher glow as they approached from the southwest. Around them,
snow began to fall. Jiro reached out to catch one of the first snowflakes of the season, but saw that
it was only ash.
The dismal cawing of crows startled him, and he looked around for the flock. Yet perched
on a nearby leafless tree limb there was only one bird, with two heads—one black and one white.
Their caw, caw, caw grew louder and louder, as if in warning.
“Come on, boy,” Lady Atsuko insisted, and quickened her pace. They pressed on to the
castle town, leaving the crow behind. With the onset of night, a thousand amber lamps were lit and
strung between the turrets, keep, and walls like a ghostly web.
A feeling of breathless anticipation gripped Jiro as they approached the main gate. He would
see Kasume soon.

Deep in one of the vaults carved into the bedrock below the Castle of Learning, Yogo Junzo
whispered the incantation to unseal the ward protecting the lacquered chest. Within lay his father’s
research and correspondence—and proof of his father’s treachery. The records were too important
to destroy and too dangerous to keep among the rest of the family archives, and so they had become
yet another entry in the family’s prodigious catalogue of forbidden objects.
He set down the oil lamp and began the work of disarming the chest’s more mundane
protections, sliding the latches in the precise order to disarm the poison needles and access the
hidden keyhole. Finally, he slid the key into the lock and twisted. The chest popped open with a
faint click, and the scent of cedarwood wafted up for a brief moment before giving way to the
mustiness of the catacombs. Peering inside, the documents looked as pristine as they had on the day
Junzo had taken them to show to the Black Watch. Even after two dozen years, the enchantments of
preservation had held.
It had been tempting to ask the family’s librarians to help him pore over the scrolls and letters
in search of any mention of Lady Atsuko, but as was often the case, the risk outweighed the time he

865
might have saved. No matter how unlikely it was that a sworn Yogo samurai would intentionally
violate their oaths, the curse on their heads was another matter. The family had learned long ago not
to share secrets unless absolutely necessary, and even then, not without first preparing the proper
contingencies.
Unpacking the chest one piece at a time, Junzo prayed for guidance to Fukurokujin, keeper
of knowledge, that his own intuition might lead him swiftly to the clues he sought. He opened the
first journal and began to read.
Little of the journals’ contents were a surprise. In defiance of the Yogo family traditions that
kept parents and children at a distance, Junzo had been involved in most of his father’s theological
inquiry and ritual experiments from an early age. Now, Junzo could see the wisdom that underpinned
those traditions. It was why he had never married and had no children of his own, and why he would
leave it to the family’s elders to choose his successor when the time came. He would not repeat his
father’s mistakes.
Junzo’s eyelids were heavy and the oil in the lamp was low by the time he found what he’d
been looking for—his father’s entries on the Shadowed Swamps and the Masks of Iuchiban. In his
log, his father speculated that the creation of the marshes was a result of a path to Jigoku being
opened within the Shinomen Forest, in the same way that the Festering Pit in the Shadowlands was
a fissure that bridged that hellish realm to the mortal one. Somehow, one of the masks that had been
placed in the safekeeping of the Kuni Witch Hunters or the Asako Inquisitors had ended up there.
His father had never had a high opinion of the Black Watch’s chief allies—and sometimes rivals.
Yet among the list of threats posed by the Shadowed Swamps and the countermeasures the
Yogo would need to prepare as part of their expedition, there was no mention of enlisting the aid of
one Lady Atsuko. After hours of searching, he had come up with nothing.
But perhaps that in and of itself was a clue.
The request for an audience with him barely passed as a proper introduction, with only the
sloppily written letter from the minor vassal Yogo Yasuhide to vouch for her. She could well be a
member of the same cult that tried to ensnare his father, hoping that enough years had passed that
the son would let his guard down and fall prey to the same lure of hidden knowledge. He would
disappoint her, but their meeting would not be completely in vain.
If she did follow in the bloody footsteps of Iuchiban’s cult, then Junzo would be doing a
service to the Empire by uncovering and thwarting her schemes. Once they had extracted everything

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she knew, the Black Watch could use that knowledge to stamp out any stirrings of the cult before it
festered and grew.
Returning the records to their box, he allowed himself a slight grin of satisfaction. Although
the matter of Kunshu was yet to be resolved, at least he could ensure Rokugan would be safe from
the threat posed by Lady Atsuko.

The darkening castle town was quieter than Jiro remembered, as though its residents were under
curfew. The sole exception was a storytelling monk leading a handful of peasant children back to
their homes by the light of her lantern. As Jiro and Lady Atsuko passed by, the monk made way for
the pair and stopped her tale, leading the children in a deferential bow. Though Jiro only caught a
handful of the lines as the monk walked away, he recognized the parable of a child-eating demon
who had been taught empathy through a trick played on her by the Little Teacher. As a result of her
experience, the demon reformed herself and became one of Shinsei’s fiercest protectors.
Jiro turned to see Lady Atsuko’s face contorted in typical disgust, though whether it was the
town, the monk, the children, the tale, or all four that offended her, he could not tell.
Soon, he would be free of her, and free to spend some quiet time with Kasume.
A golden moon lit the way to the main gate, outlining the spindled metal rods, the great
fluttering crest of the Scorpion Clan, and the murder of crows perched on the lowest awning. The
two-headed crow was nowhere to be seen.
The old woman was uncharacteristically silent behind him, her shawl draped around her
knobby shoulders. Before they reached the castle keep, she took his hand and pressed her thumb
into the center of his palm so hard he almost yelped in pain.
“Thank you for your help. I hope you are justly rewarded.”
Jiro bowed to her and hoped she would let go, but she didn’t. The woman’s fingernails felt
sharp enough to draw blood.
“It was an honor, my lady,” he stammered. As if sensing his submission, the old woman let
go.
The guards bowed to Atsuko as she handed them the letter of introduction, then they looked
approvingly at Jiro.
“Lord Yogo sent word of your arrival. You are expected inside.”

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 The floorboards soughed underfoot as they entered the keep. The daimyō’s audience
chamber was the only room on the floor with solid wood walls; the rest of the halls were ephemeral,
changing at the whims and needs of the estate. Today, the paper walls were a plain, blank white.
Emerging from a hidden panel, Yogo Kasume stepped into the main hall. Jiro’s heart leapt
in his chest when he saw his betrothed, and he forgot himself for a single, sublime moment. He
wanted to hold her close and tell her everything about the past month, make her feel safe, but
something about her seemed distant. There was a coldness in her affect. She turned away to address
Jiro’s charge.
“My lord will see you now, Lady Atsuko.”
“At long last,” the old woman said as she strode across the wooden floorboards toward the
audience chamber, barely stirring them under her petite frame. Jiro looked down at Kasume with
misty eyes.
“I missed you. Every moment we were apart, I thought of you,” he said, though this was not
true.
“We will speak tonight,” Kasume said coldly.
Jiro followed her to the audience chamber entrance. “All does not seem well.” Peering
within, he could see the room was lined with guards, and many of the family’s highest-ranking
shugenja were also in attendance.
Kasume led him to a small, dim room adjoining the hall. He touched her hand, and she pulled
away, skin prickling with gooseflesh, and gazed up at him from a deep well of anger. “Your mother
sent me some of your things before our wedding. Things from home.”
The young samurai nodded and sucked in his gut. His mother was always so thoughtful. But
inside himself, he felt some vague, heavy pressure build.
“Among them were some letters.”
Atsuko’s screeching laugh resounded from the audience chamber. Kasume, emboldened,
went on. “Among them was a letter addressed to you. Asking you to join the unit at Beiden Pass.”
Was that a crack of glass? Jiro’s head was swimming. Kasume held out several rolls of
parchment, her voice shaking. He tried to speak up, but it was as though a dam had broken, and
whatever Kasume had been holding back had burst forth, unbridled.
“I wondered, ‘Did Jiro stay behind while Hideo went to fight? In cowardice?’ but then I read
these.” She unfurled several parchments. Each of them the same letter, written over and over, each

868
with minor imperfections but bearing the same hand, and each addressed to Hideo. Kasume turned
the original letter over, crusted with red wax.
“And this sealing wax. Did you forge a summons to Hideo?”
“No. No, Hideo—had. I had,” Jiro tugged at his collar. He felt suffocated. e young samurai
wanted to put on his armor, wanted to look tough, wanted to hide.
“I received the letter—Hideo wanted to fight in my place,” he said quietly.
“You are a terrible liar, Jiro.”
Kasume’s beautiful face was contorted into a look of utter repulsion. Jiro reached to grab the
parchment, but she stepped back lightly.
“You sent Hideo to die. On our wedding day, no less!”
A snapping sound, as of a whip, broke the silence. A pained shout went up from the audience
chamber. Jiro and Kasume exchanged a wordless look, then turned and burst through the doors.

Despite the fog that clung to the corners of his mind, Junzo sensed the intrusion in the castle’s
spiritual barriers at the same time as his fellow shugenja, who looked up at him in dismay from their
seats to his left and right. Something powerful—and deeply Tainted—had brushed past the castle
wards just as Junzo and his retinue were assembling in the audience hall to receive Lady Atsuko.
“What is it?” asked Captain Seppun Masayo. Standing beside him, she gripped her bisentō,
the glaive of her office, a little more tightly. She was not as attuned to the wards of this castle as she
would have been to those of the Imperial palace, but she was sharply observant nonetheless.
“The perimeter wards,” Junzo explained. “A Tainted creature approaches.”
Although her face was strangely bare in the presence of so many Scorpion, Masayo wore
her own mask of courage, and she did not betray any surprise or fear. She asked only, “Will those
of us assembled be enough?” She swept an appraising glance over the dozen or so warrior-monks
that were posted throughout the hall, holding their naginata at attention, and the bodyguards who
shadowed the Yogo shugenja wherever they went, their katana ready to be drawn at a moment’s
notice.
“Yes. The creature that approaches is not so dangerous that it poses a real threat to us or the
castle,” Junzo assured her. It was strong enough to resist their threshold barrier, but it was not strong
enough to have taken the wards down in its wake, as an oni lord would.

869
 However, it was increasingly likely that Lady Atsuko was the threat concerning the
Shadowed Swamp, as opposed to a mere cultist, although why she would attempt such a forward,
obvious assault on the castle was a mystery. It was possible that she had sensed an opportunity, or
perhaps she had heard Kunshu’s call. Either way, it did not matter.
They would entrap the creature within the audience chamber, and then interrogate it to
discover its plans and what it was doing so deep within Scorpion territory. He would lay this ghost
of his father’s past to rest, at last.
Yogo Kikuyo stepped forward, clearly uncomfortable with what she was about to say. “My
lord, our shikigami have already directed their complete attention to keeping the heirloom in check.
Should we prepare for an ‘eastern sunset’?” It was the secret phrase the Black Watch used to refer
to the plan for evacuating the most precious contents of the Castle of Learning, though not even they
knew precisely what those contents entailed. They did not know that they were guarding a piece of
Fu Leng himself: one of the twelve Black Scrolls. That knowledge only ever lay with the Yogo
daimyō and the Scorpion Clan Champion.
“No,” Junzo waved her off. He was sure Kikuyo did not mean to insult him by suggesting
that they would allow such a calamity to befall the castle. Instead, he answered evenly, “That will
not be necessary.”
Captain Masayo narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but not even she would be able to infer the
signicance of the phrase without more context.
One of the heralds scurried toward the dais to announce, “She is coming.”
The assembled samurai adopted their formal postures and awaited further instruction from
Junzo. Luckily, he did not have to warn them to be careful not to engage the Tainted creature in
melee, lest they risk contracting the Shadowlands corruption from one of its blows.
As the sliding doors opened, a dark centipede skittered past Junzo’s foot before hiding in the
shadows of the dais’s steps. From the shadowed hall emerged a woman, too thin and frail, her fine
robes hanging from her limbs like wilting wisteria vines. He wasn’t sure whether he was imagining
the stench of rotting flowers mixed in with the scent of hot sake.
“The Lady Atsuko,” proclaimed the herald.
Step by tottering step, she drew closer to Junzo and the others, and then offered a bow that
was so deep as to be borderline mocking. After she had risen again, she stared directly into Junzo’s

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eyes and said, “I am flattered to have been granted so large an audience by the powerful and wise
Lord Yogo Junzo.”
“You cannot fool us, demon,” he replied. “We know what you are.” The samurai around him
shifted, preparing to react at any sign of attack.
“If you indeed already know, then why is it that you’ve allowed me to enter?” As though
she were amused by her own question, she cackled, her laugh rising into a screech.
“Because you have no hope of defeating us in our own stronghold.” Junzo reached within
his robe for a holy charm that would stop the demon where it stood.
“Ah, is that something for me? And here I am the one who is supposed to be presenting
gifts... How rude of me.” The old woman’s kimono sloughed off her emaciated back as she stood,
strange and unnaturally tall, her right arm long and spindled and dark. Someone gasped. With a
sudden crack, she whipped her arm out to slash at Junzo, only for Captain Masayo to lunge forward
and block the blow with the long haft of her spear. The demon drew back.
“Defend Lord Junzo!” the captain shouted as she took a defensive stance in front of him,
leveling her spear tip at the monstrosity before praying to the kami of the earth to fortify them with
the sturdiness of stone. Junzo lent his voice to hers, hastening the kami’s response.
As soon as the kami heeded their prayers, Junzo flung the holy scripture like a knife at the
demon.
The charm blackened and burned away to ash in midair.
No, it couldn’t be...
But then he felt it, the bloodthirsty spirit of Kunshu calling out to him, resonating with the
malevolent energies of the centipede demon. In the chamber below them, he could feel the paper
gods turning, rebelling against his control. He couldn’t fight them and the demon at once, not in this
state.
Sensing his unease, the rest of the warrior-monks and bodyguards formed protective circles
around their daimyō and the other shugenja, as other samurai burst in from the side rooms to respond
to the commotion.

A paralyzing fear gripped Jiro as he watched his betrothed charge forward, wielding the short sword
of a samurai. When had she retrieved her blade from the entry hall?

871
 Kasume stopped short as the terror of the threat washed over them both. A bruise-colored
centipede, bigger and longer than two horses put together, reared back as its lower body lengthened
and sprouted dozens of hooked legs. Its huge scything claws brushed the naginata of the Yogo
warrior-monks aside like twigs as it lunged for its prey. A hungry maw filled with razor-sharp teeth
bit down around a bodyguard’s head, severing the head cleanly from its body. The face Lady Atsuko
had worn, heavily made-up and painted like a mask, smirked down at her remaining prey from the
center of her forehead.
“You shall never again step foot in Rokugan!” the Yogo daimyō bellowed, and then he was
chanting, moving his hands in supplication behind a shugenja clad in Imperial armor, but he seemed
to be fumbling over the words and motions.
The Yogo samurai fell back, and Atsuko pressed her attack. One claw pierced the armor of
a bodyguard as she brought down the other to cut the shugenja standing behind him in two.
Amidst the cacophony came the wail of a conch shell announcing that battle was being joined
in the northeast. A moment later, and another horn blew, this time from the opposite direction. Were
they being attacked from all sides?
“No!” the daimyō exclaimed, the air around him rippling with heat as he stared down Lady
Atsuko.
“It is time to pay my master his due,” the monster roared in Lady Atsuko’s shrill voice.
“I will not fail Rokugan!” the daimyō shouted back in defiance, and the flames of the room’s
candles ignited into fireballs and rose into the air at his command.
“Oh, but you already have!”
The Imperial guard raised her bisentō as it glowed a bright jade-green and rushed toward the
demon. She pierced the demon’s chitinous body, and Lady Atsuko howled in pain, but then another
scream joined the chorus. A bladed claw sprouted from the Imperial’s back. The centipede-demon
tossed the woman aside into the shadows.
The daimyō let out a howl of anger and sent orbs of fire hurtling at Lady Atsuko, searing her
flesh but also spreading flames across the floor and onto the ceiling. Black smoke billowed forth as
the rice-paper screens ignited, and Jiro shielded his face from the intense heat.
Through the smoke, he could make out the form of Lord Junzo who gurgled and spat blood
as several long, sharp tendrils pierced him through the heart. His eyes went wide as the tendrils
retreated, and he clutched his chest as blood pumped out beneath his palm.

872
 Kasume had dropped Jiro’s letters on the floor. As Kasume raised her sword in frantic
desperation, a long trail of venomous ichor dripped from the demon’s mandibles.
In that moment, Jiro’s path was clear. He dropped to his knees, gathered up the papers, and
shot one last, fleeting look at his betrothed.
Atsuko had already pierced Kasume once through the belly, and she was flailing, opening
and closing her mouth, staring at him in wordless agony. Whimpering, he turned and burst through
the door into the cool and crisp night air.
“Lord Junzo has fallen. Help him!” he shouted to where the guards should be, but there was
no one there to hear.
He had escaped the chaos of the keep only to discover that the keep was under attack from
without. Illuminated by the flickering light of the guards’ braziers, goblins, ogres, and terrible
monstrosities he had never seen before were attempting to scale the walls and, failing that, trying to
tear down the main gate. Flying horrors swooped down from above, tearing the helmets from the
samurai and then gouging out their eyes with razor-sharp beaks.
He could only stand and watch as the Yogo samurai fell before the horrific onslaught. If the
Yogo daimyō had fallen, what use would he be in this fight?
A terrible scream from behind him reminded Jiro of the mortal danger still posed by Lady
Atsuko, and he forced himself to move. He had to escape, had to survive this waking nightmare. He
ran to the stables in search of a horse, but before he could mount one, a young woman clad in black
and red grabbed him by the wrist. The crest on her robes wasn’t that of a Yogo, but a Soshi
“Come!” she commanded, and before Jiro could react, the woman took the letters from his
arms and stuffed them in the saddlebags beside ancient scrolls wrapped in black cloth.
The young samurai looked around, dazed. The castle had erupted into chaos and flame.
Guards shouted from the watchtowers as soldiers strung their bows with black-feathered arrows.
Their attention was split between fending off the assault from without and stopping the slaughter
from within.
“We feared a doom such as this. We ride for Otosan Uchi to deliver these directly to the
Regent—at any cost. As a Yogo, this might be your final duty to your family.”
The woman mounted a horse of her own and then gestured to a cadre of soldiers on horseback
in black coats. The leader of the soldiers looked down at the young samurai with a stern expression
and strung his half-bow. Jiro wanted to ask what was in his saddlebags, but then thought better of

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it. His head was pounding. He had brought ruin to Yogo Junzo. Others would read his forgeries and
he would be punished. He had lost his future; he had lost Kasume; he had lost everything. If he
could complete this one task, maybe he could redeem himself.
From high atop the blazing keep, there came an unholy, bone-chilling hiss, followed by
Atsuko’s familiar shrieking laugh. Dozens of soldiers loosed arrows at the massive, coiling form of
the oni as it emerged from one window, smirking.
Heart hammering in his chest, Jiro offered a quick nod of understanding and mounted the
horse. With a shout, they charged into the night.

After a night of riding under the unwavering eye of the moon, the riders stopped at a nameless
village hemmed in by dilapidated fences. The leaves had fallen from the trees and lay in dead piles
on the muddy road. It was cold enough, and early enough, that no one had stirred yet as dawn
approached.
As the sun pierced the veil of morning mist, a rooster crowed.
Jiro looked around while the riders dismounted and tended to the horses. There was no
movement in the hazy morning air, save for a large, fat beetle that landed on a nearby stone wall. A
pair of crows stared at him from their nest in the naked tree branches.
The rooster crowed again.
Jiro’s nervous gaze fell on a wretched-looking willow tree. Two figures stood in front of Jiro
and the crowd of soldiers, staring at him with brilliant blue eyes.
Jiro did not hear the third rooster crow as the figures moved closer, leering at him from
where they hovered over the muddy ground. It was Hideo and Kasume, their hands intertwined.
Kasume’s belly was riddled with wide, bleeding gashes from where Lady Atsuko had pierced her
through. The samurai Jiro rode with were nowhere to be seen, but it would have been the same had
he been surrounded by them. These two figures had come for Jiro, alone.
Kasume’s ghostly mouth gaped as she whispered in the stillness.
“Poor Jiro,” she mouthed. But he knew she was mocking him.

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The summons to court, placed at the entrance of his quarters as if an afterthought, was as expected
as it was unwelcome. Ikoma Ujiaki frowned at the seal on it, as if the image of the flower pressed
into the wax could curl at the heat of his gaze. Kakita Yoshi dared to use the imperial seal on what
he had written. The Lion ground his teeth. Of course he does. He is the regent now, and thinks he
has won. Ujiaki clenched the rice paper in his fingers.
Doubtless Yoshi would order the Lion Clan to withdraw its forces from Crane and Unicorn
lands, and Ujiaki would be chattered at in that same superior tone Yoshi used before Bayushi Shoju
was removed as regent, when he arrayed the Phoenix Clan to do his bidding.
Ujiaki snorted in disdain and flung the paper away from him, where it fluttered to the floor
like a wounded bird. Useless chickens, the lot of them, flapping their wings and crowing “under
Heaven!” as if that meant anything to Yoshi except the height of his own ambitions.
He ran his thumb over the hilt of the katana at his belt, the action soothing his thoughts and
focusing them from bitter rage into the shape of a plan. Of course the new regent would act as though
the Lion merely captured Kyūden Kakita, as though his personal castle was the same as the whole
of Rokugan—conveniently forgetting what happened to it, and who was responsible.
The Lion ambassador narrowed his eyes.
I will not let him forget. We will see how far I can push him, and how willing he is to act.

When he finally deigned to appear before the Imperial Court, Ujiaki was not alone: with him were
Akodo Kage, Matsu Hiroru, and the newly arrived Kitsu Motso. As part of the escort of Kakita
Ichiro, nephew to the regent, Motso had been spared the fate of the unfortunate souls who had fought

875
to take Kyūden Kakita. Although the appearance of many Lions when only one was summoned was
cause for chatter, Ujiaki was certain it was Motso’s presence that caused the greater stir of murmurs,
like echoes to their footsteps on the floor. Ujiaki held in a growl of contempt when he saw how
perfectly they were polished, the mirror shine gleaming in the soft glow of the lanterns.
Freshly polished so Yoshi can see the imprints of the noses of those who bow in supplication
to him. He held in a scowl. He’ll not have that honor from me.
The Kakita family daimyō sat on the Emerald throne with a careful grace—one Ujiaki
imagined he’d practiced a thousand times more than he’d ever sat horseback—and motioned with
one hand for the Lion delegation to advance, his other hand delicately holding his silver tessen.
“You arrive at last, Lord Ikoma Ujiaki. And with other Lions, I see. Do you require a pride to appear
before the court?”
“The pride that stands out in this court is not my own,” Ujiaki said gruffly, then inwardly
berated himself for letting Yoshi get a rise out of him. Not so early. Hold your temper. For the
moment.
Yoshi carefully positioned a considering hand beneath his lower lip, thoughtfully tapping
his silver fan against his leg. “So you say,” he said smoothly. “Yet there have been no reports of
Lion leaving Unicorn lands. Still the aggression of your clan continues.”
Ujiaki kept his face still, though the mention of his greatest failure stung. All that work—the
wedding plans with Shinjo Altansarnai were so carefully crafted, meant to show the unreliable
nature of the Unicorn. The depleted stores, to make the Lion forces desperate, enraged. But the
damned Crane makes them dance like puppets, paper horses behind a screen. “And what of the
aggression of your own clan, Regent?” he replied, and the whispers crashed throughout the room
like a wave.
Yoshi’s frown was small, almost theatrical, but there was a flame in his voice. “You speak
against yourself, Ambassador. The Lion captured Kyūden Kakita without warning—”
“I do not speak of Kakita lands, though for certain they will be mentioned,” Ujiaki
interrupted, pushing on. “But Toshi Ranbo has been known as Lion territory for generations. And
yet, instead of being given back to the Lion, it was ceded to the Scorpion—an insult meant to inflame
us. What were we to do, when to endure the insult would invite further aggression from Unicorn
and Crane alike?”

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 Yoshi’s laugh was short and cold, the sharp trill of the kingfisher. “You claim it was in
defense, then, that Matsu Tsuko declared herself Lion Clan Champion and led your forces to Kyūden
Kakita, breaking its walls and imprisoning its people?”
I had such high hopes for you, Tsuko. But forces were arrayed against you that I could not
have imagined. Ujiaki’s eyes narrowed. I only hope it can count for something here. “Whether or
not what Matsu Tsuko did was the will of my clan, none can claim that she acted ignobly. Evidence
stands well to the contrary. Did she not treat her prisoners well? Did she not offer a chance of parley?
To address you, Regent, as the lord of the castle, and ask for you to meet?”
The chatter that filled the room made the blood pound in Ujiaki’s ears. A glance to his left
showed Matsu Hiroru, Tsuko’s younger brother, whose face was characteristically expressionless,
but whose eyes burned. Beside him was Akodo Kage, and the tightness in the old man’s eyes spoke
of wariness. The old teacher was wise in the ways of battle, and his knowledge had benefited many
of the players in this dangerous game: Hiroru, kneeling beside him; Toturi and Arasou, brothers on
whom so much of the Lion Clan’s futures had rested; and even Doji Kuwanan, whom Tsuko had
met as a prisoner and quietly set free. Kage often counseled care and caution, tactical strikes,
techniques too subtle for the current situation.
Yoshi knows subtlety like a flick of that irritating fan of his. Brute force, in this case, is what
is called for. He smothered a dark smile. Think like a Matsu. All ferocity, no retreat. His eyes slid
to his right, landing on Kitsu Motso, and when their gaze met, he could see a fierce agreement in
the man. Did he have that look when Tsuko declared herself champion? Did he predict what even I
could not?
Yoshi’s face remained calm and imperious, but just for a moment, Ujiaki swore he’d seen
the knuckles on the man’s hand grow white, tightening on his fan. “You speak with disrespect,
Lion,” he said coldly. “Remember whom you address.”
“I know well to whom I speak,” Ujiaki growled, his voice growing in intensity. “The Regent
now, but before and after this moment, the daimyō of the Kakita. A man who allowed his castle to
be destroyed, rather than to answer a parley. You speak of disrespect, but what is the fate of one
who allowed the destruction of his own lands? His own home? You squawked of ‘under Heaven’
before, but what now?” His words seemed to shake the room. “What is honorable combat, when
instead of parley, there is destruction? What is respect for the laws of Rokugan, when it is violated

877
by the weapons of outsiders?” He held the silence for a moment, letting his next line land with a
sudden precipitous drop in volume.
“What is this then, but a true act of war?”
Yoshi flushed, though Ujiaki would attribute that to the man’s own stunted desire for conflict
rather than embarrassment. “You dare to threaten war upon another clan, in the very throne room?”
“I dare to state that the Crane has already made that proclamation—with the destruction of
Kyūden Kakita.” Ujiaki felt his own face grow hot. “And yet you, Regent, demand that my clan
stands down, while the Crane detonates our monuments, rather than speak to us as equals? To
negotiate? What value do you hold on life, Regent? When a Lion general goes into battle, they know
what they ask of their troops. What promise of heroism and glory is there in the chaos of an
explosion? And yet you ask for me to look past the grave insult you have not only hurled upon my
clan, but possibly on any other who might stand against the Crane. You think you know what it
means to offer your life for your clan, you who have never held a blade?”
True anger flashed in Yoshi’s eyes, though to his narrow credit, his voice did not rise in
volume. “I will not abide this disrespect, Ambassador.” His fan snapped open, the silver slats
glinting like blades. “Be well aware of the danger in your words.”
“Cease your cries, Chancellor!” Ujiaki barked. “You wave that fan like a child with a
wooden sword, imagining it more than it is, as you imagine yourself to be more than you are. You
and I both know you will not condemn this dreadful act, because then your own clan would lose
face.”
“This was the action of a single—”
“That is impossible!” He was unstoppable now, and though Yoshi’s complexion had hardly
reddened, Ujiaki imagined it bright against the Crane Chancellor’s white hair. “It could not have
been a single bushi who carried out this fateful act. If you say Tsuko’s actions represent all the Lion,
then this must represent the will of the Crane in the same fashion. Will you say nothing to address
this violation, to act as the regent that you say you are, against such tragedy and betrayal?” He
ground his teeth into the last phrase. “Against the murder of your own wife?”
Yoshi was on his feet, and Ujiaki felt himself leap upwards as well, as if ready to duel—
though that were impossible on so many frustrating levels. “Enough,” the Crane snapped, then
steadied his voice. “You have no place in this court, Ujiaki. I shall not go so far as to command your
death or strip your rank, but you are no longer permitted as an ambassador here. My order to the

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Lion Clan stands: remove your troops from Crane and Unicorn territory, and put up your swords, or
this aggression will not be tolerated. Bring them that message as your last act as ambassador, and
do not act within the permissions of that office again.
“You are dismissed, Ujiaki. Take your little pride with you.”
Ujiaki was barely conscious of his stalking out of the room, or the hurried footsteps of the
other Lion following him. I hope that outburst was worth it, he berated himself. Burned down
everything, and for what? There is no victory against Yoshi in court, certainly not from me. There
may be horror against what the Crane has wrought, and in tales of the explosion at Kyūden Kakita,
but is not enough on its own to tear down that damnable man’s reputation. He snorted, nostrils
stinging in the late fall cold. Some might even feel sorry for him, the fools.
He dimly heard Kage’s attempts to catch his attention, but put up a hand and stalked to a far
corner of the gardens, thick with maples. Though most of their leaves had fallen, the thicket was
dense enough to hide from prying eyes and the crunch of the small leaves would be a challenge for
even the nimblest of shinobi to avoid. He stopped, and slowly his fellows joined him, in a rough
circle.
There was a moment of heavy silence before Kitsu Motso—accurate to his usual sardonic
self—gave a harsh chuckle and shook his head. “Not the worst speech I’ve ever heard in court, but
certainly the loudest.”
“What were you thinking?” Akodo Kage hissed, shaking his head in disbelief. “The Lion
have no representation in the court now. You could have gotten yourself killed—”
“Untrue,” Ujiaki said sharply. Though I will never let them see that I am somewhat relieved.
“To call for my death would be to admit his vulnerability at the loss of his wife and castle. While
he did not see fit to sacrifice his political position to parley with Lady Matsu Tsuko, I cannot imagine
destroying his lands was a decision he would have made, even to defeat a dangerous foe.”
Hiroru was silent, his face blank, but Ujiaki knew the young man well enough to see the fury
in his eyes. “I am not my sister,” he said quietly, “or I could bring that upstart Crane down from his
perch by the neck.”
The former Lion ambassador nodded slowly, and tried to add some gentleness to his voice.
“You are not, but you share with her many important traits, such as a glorious stubbornness.” And
unpredictability, though that went well enough. Manipulating Tsuko had been a roll of the dice
every time.

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 Certainly, she had proved to be hotheaded enough in certain situations, and able to perform
far better in battle than he could have hoped. And it was easy to count on her thirst for revenge as
enough to spur certain factions into more aggressive action, but her ability to temper that thirst had
worked even better than he could have hoped. Her release of Doji Kuwanan had been particularly
unexpected.
Certainly, he had not counted on that outcome when he hired the rōnin to capture Kuwanan
at Shirei Mura, but Tsuko had surprised him then, and to forego a half-measure of revenge in the
hopes of destabilizing the Crane was a step he did not expect, and even admired. A mention to her
of his pride at Akodo Toturi being made Emerald Champion worked to enflame her rage exactly as
he’d hoped, but her further declaring herself as the new Lion Clan Champion and successfully
uniting the Lion generals to take the Kakita Palace was a success he had not dared dream of. The
resources captured there, after such a long shortage of food, would make the Lion even stronger
against their enemies, and he had envisioned Unicorn and Crane forces crumpling before their
charge like rice stalks against a sickle. Lion banners would march across the lands, retaking what
once had been lost, and winning new territories in one proud offensive after another. Tsuko’s
brilliant and swift capture of Kyūden Kakita felt like the triumphant first step in this march to
victory.
But too soon after, the gaijin pepper that the Crane had acquired—Where? And how?—
brought the castle itself low. at was a shift he never could have predicted. And with Bayushi Shoju
removed as regent, the Lion Clan’s power held on by a thread.
“None of us are Tsuko, but what is certain is that none of us will be chosen as the next Lion
ambassador now.” Kage sighed in frustration. “We have given up what little say we had in a display
of foolish arrogance.”
Hiroru threw a dark glance at his former master. “Or one of courage. Something the Crane
know little about.”
Kage shook his head, dismissive. “An empty display, regardless. And one with dire
consequences.”
Kitsu Motso gave another dry laugh. “Kage-sama, you could teach these maples around us
how to quake,” sneered Motso. “But one should expect that of someone scared from the room by a
minor clan.”

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 Kage’s face grew cold and intense, and he opened his mouth a moment before Ujiaki threw
up a hand. “Enough,” he growled, his voice low. “You say none of you will be ambassador, and that
is certain. What I believe is that the regent would never give the office to anyone who would speak
against him. Perhaps anyone at all.”
The old Akodo clenched his fists. “All the more reason to not endanger that station!”
“Did that meeting not make it apparent that station is a lie? That whatever power it might
hold was a falsehood?” Kage’s face reddened in frustration, but he said nothing. “It is better to know
that the Lion are being silenced directly than suffer under the illusion that we are being heard.”
“So what now?” asked Motso, crossing his arms. Ever a man unafraid to look arrogant.
Ujiaki regarded him carefully.
“There are no allies we might find in the court,” he said slowly. “But there may be one
elsewhere. Guarded, but not truly imprisoned. Accused, but not convicted. And seemingly
powerless, though assuredly not without power.”
Motso caught his meaning first, and even the brash man looked a bit taken aback. Kage
blinked in disbelief, and Hiroru’s gaze was practiced, unreadable as a Scorpion behind their mask.
The old teacher stammered a moment, trying to compose himself. “You... you can’t mean...”
“I do.”
“But Toshi Ranbo—”
“Was given to them. They did not take it from us.”
Hiroru’s look was even. “They are not to be trusted.”
Motso responded to that, ever hungry for a target. “Are they ever? If they stood in the rain,
I’m not sure if they’d get wet, or just find their way around the drops.”
Kage took a deep breath, and looked at Ujiaki seriously. “You risk everything with this.”
“To anyone who saw my court appearance, I was just one loud Lion. If anything goes wrong,
I am one still.” Though I have no intention of going down alone if I fail. Beasts of the field claw at
a Lion, but we rise. I will see us rise still. “Then we are agreed?”
Slowly, each of the men nodded.
“Good.” Ujiaki said firmly. “Now, I need some tea.”

The Dragon guards started as he approached, and Ujiaki inclined his head politely—a gesture that
was entirely unnecessary, given his status, but marked him as a supplicant to their judgement. He

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sensed them exchange a quick glance before they relaxed slightly. “Ikoma-sama,” the one of the left
said carefully, but not without respect. “It is... unusual that you are here. And so close to the dinner
hour?”
“Is it?” Ujiaki quipped with a dry bit of humor, shaking his head. “I take dinner later myself,
as I am not much loved in the court these days... Neither is your guest. I would take tea with an old
friend, should that be allowed.”
The guards narrowed their eyes, and carefully Ujiaki lifted the smooth sandalwood lid of the
elaborate tea set he carried, showing the delicate porcelain cups, nestled safely in a compartment
away from the small iron pot. “No hidden knives or keys, no implements of destruction”—his face
quirked slightly, adding a smile to his dry wit—“though in all fairness, I suppose a Scorpion bent
on my death would need but a goose’s quill to make an end of me, if the stories are true.” His smile
turned almost indulgent, a smirk of confidence. “But even if they were, I am certain your charge
would not survive an escape attempt. And I am doubly certain he knows it.”
The one on the right looked to have a shrewder brain beneath his helmet, and gazed carefully
at the set. “Open the tea canister,” he demanded. “I’ll see for myself if you carry anything
dangerous.”
Ujiaki gave a nearly theatrical sigh, and shook his head. “If one of you holds this, then—you
wouldn’t diminish its beauty by setting it upon the floor, would you?” Awkwardly the two shook
their heads—Dragons and their formality, of course—and the Lion placed the case in the
outstretched hands of the first guard. He withdrew the slender case and opened it before them, rolling
the contents inside for their observation, and wafting the scents in their direction. The two sniffed
and wrinkled their noses, and Ujiaki did his best to grind down his impatience, visualizing a sword
against a whetstone. All patience, all smiles, all understanding. This must not be seen as artifice.
Finally the guard on the right—if not the senior by rank then certainly by sense—nodded,
and Ujiaki resealed the container and packed it away. “Four coils only,” the guard chided, gesturing
to the incense clock that burned on a table nearby, sending a gentle scent of pine sap drifting into
the air. “A cup between friends—don’t try to fool me that a Lion appreciates the art of tea.”
“You would be surprised, I’d wager”—pull back the irritation, pull back—“but I shall
refrain from any formal ceremonies. Thank you for your forbearance.” Again Ujiaki tilted his head,
and waited patiently for the guards to pull open the door to the room, hardly waiting for him to step
inside before sliding it quickly closed, as though the occupant could become mist and slither out.

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 If Bayushi Shoju was surprised to see him, it did not register on the visible part of his face,
and Ujiaki would not have laid money on a bet that it registered underneath the mask, either. The
Scorpion simply sat cross-legged at the center of the floor near a small brazier, contemplating a Go
board sitting on a low table before him, a game half-finished, but no opponent in sight. “A unique
pleasure to see you, Ikoma-sama,” he said, that voice seeming like it came both from somewhere
far away and next to your ear at the same time. “Did I hear talk of tea?”
“You did. May I present you with some?”
A slight twitch of the Scorpion’s mouth, which for others—even Ujiaki—would be a bitter
smile, asking the dry question Do I have a choice? “That would be pleasant. Please—I am no host
here, but nonetheless I consider you my guest. Allow me.”
Ujiaki set down the tea box near the brazier, and carefully Shoju removed the heavy pot from
the box, examining it for a moment before pouring some water, kept in a nearby flask for his
refreshment, into the kettle and placing it on the fire. Ujiaki settled himself on the tatami and opened
the tea container, and masked his flash of enjoyment as he saw Shoju turn, interested. “Bergamot, a
Lion favorite,” the Scorpion observed quietly. “And something else.”
“Rhubarb,” Ujiaki clarified, certain Shoju had known but was waiting to make sure he did
as well. “A favorite of your clan, if I am not mistaken.”
“You are not.” Shoju’s dark eyes regarded him almost blankly behind his lacquered mask,
and Ujiaki ground down his inner hatred for that clan’s particular affectation. Whetstone, blade.
“An... unusual combination.”
“But an excellent one, I hope you’ll find, particularly in the current weather.”
Shoju’s gaze did not waver. “I fear I have not had much occasion to experience it.”
Telling. Ujiaki covered his reaction as best he could with a nod, and an idle scratch at his
impressive beard. He’s been out of the loop. Scorpion’s spies are silent as the mountain, and yet
they have not reached him. Either they are not as good as they say, or they have remained separate
for a reason. “Well, it’s hardly pleasant. The bite in the air is tense enough that it cuts like knives,
and it looks to be a dark and frigid winter, especially for those not prepared for it.” He felt the
Scorpion’s eyes weighing him as he continued, and he pushed to keep his tone conversational. “Even
as a pragmatist who knows winter has its place in a cycle, I admit I long for spring to arrive. Nothing
like the first sign of a true spring—the blooms of the palest tsubaki, pure as the snow they replace.”

883
 Shoju sat back and folded his hands, the hanakotoba apparently not lost on him. In the
language of flowers, the camellia had a far more dire meaning to those who wielded a blade—the
“beheading” of the flowers at their fall. Pale white, however, was not the red of love and passion,
but waiting. “An elegant thought,” he said slowly, his eyes downcast a moment. “Are you much of
a gardener, then, Ikoma-sama?”
It was the art of decades of manipulation that crafted a laugh from Ujiaki’s throat that did
not sound too triumphant at the sign of interest, nor too false. “Not nearly to the level that you are,
Bayushi-sama,” he chuckled. “I lacked the patience for true careful cultivation, especially in my
youth, and the understanding of when to let the garden develop on its own. But now...” He steepled
his fingers. “I know that sometimes, it is helpful to push the snow off of a battered chrysanthemum.”
That was it. The barest twitch of Shoju’s mouth at the mention of the Imperial flower, the
sign of the Empire itself. Ujiaki was certain the other man had meant for him to see it. Heartened,
he pushed ahead. “Sometimes it is even necessary.”
“Necessary?”
“Lest it be crushed under the weight, especially when fools want such weight untouched
because they believe it looks more lovely that way.”
Shoju’s nod was barely discernible. “There is risk to manipulating the gardens of others, of
course. Even the shifting of snow might invoke disappointment, or harm to other flowers.”
Ujiaki leaned forward. Any guard listening would be perplexed at best. I believed the
language of flowers was only good for wooing—I never thought it would decide the fate of the
Empire, but we are in strange times. Sharpen the blade. “Gardeners such as we know the truth of
things. It is the chrysanthemum that is the focus of all the garden, and it must be protected. All else
falls away before it, or can be straightened after spring arrives.” A shrug, slight. “Or uprooted, if it
no longer is fit to flourish.”
The Scorpion looked down, considering. The water had begun to boil now, the steam further
masking Shoju’s face. “As you say,” he began slowly, then looked up towards his guest. “I believe
I could be so bold a gardener, knowing to what purpose that disruption was for. One must know
what is intended to bloom.”
In Ujiaki’s mind, a blade sung against a whetstone, trembling in the air. With sure hands, he
slid his fingers into notches on the tea set and lifted up the hidden top of the box, setting it aside to
reveal a stoppered porcelain bottle and two slender saucers. The water continued to boil as he un-

884
stoppered the bottle and poured a measure of sake into each cup, and with a nod, both men lifted
their cup, dark eyes locked.
“To the garden that flourishes,” Ujiaki began, and let the words hang as Shoju raised his cup
a little higher.
“May what is necessary be pruned, and the old swept away.” His gaze burned with a
determination that was almost shocking to see on such an otherwise neutral face. “Unmourned.”
The note of the blade sings in the silence. The plan is joined.
“Kanpai,” the men declared in unison, and drank.

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When Ikoma Ujiaki had gone, Bayushi Shoju turned to a Go board set up on a nearby table, looking
at it, but not actually seeing it. His thoughts revolved, instead, around the offer Ujiaki had couched
in hanakotoba, the language of flowers. The thought of escaping his confinement, and seeking to
restore his regency, had ignited a surprisingly keen sense of anticipation, of opportunities suddenly
and unexpectedly in reach. Shoju had resigned himself to death, but it hadn’t been the prospect of
dying that had bothered him. All samurai lived their lives a katana’s length from Emma-Ō’s
judgment, a truism with which he had long ago made peace.
Shoju deliberately pulled his thoughts away from Ujiaki, to gain some distance from them,
and pushed them, instead, toward the Go board. It was the set that Hantei Jodan, the late Emperor
and his friend, had gifted to Shoju only hours before his death at the hands of his son, Prince Sotorii.
Shoju had been denied anything not expressly allowed by his jailers, except for the Go set.
Apparently a gift from the Emperor was immune to even the most egregious accusations of treason.
He narrowed his eyes at the arrangement of black stones on the board, and then those of
white. In theory, if both players made only optimum placements of their stones, black would win in
six moves. He had determined four of them, but the fifth stubbornly eluded him.
Not that it mattered. He was merely puzzling out the solutions to Go problems posed in a
treatise by a famous Shiba player of some two centuries past, grudgingly provided to him by his
jailers. It was entirely unsatisfying, though. There was no urgency, no tension to the game, because
he had no opponent. Without an opponent, Go became a hollow endeavor.
Shoju turned away from the board, and the implications of his agreement with Ujiaki came
flooding back in.

886
 What had scraped away at him like an ink-stick on a grinding stone wasn’t impending death;
it was that he had failed Jodan. Just as the late Emperor had entrusted him with the Go set, an
Imperial heirloom, he had likewise entrusted him with the Empire itself, until Prince Daisetsu could
ascend. But Shoju had not succeeded in consolidating his Regency, or finding the missing princes,
before Toturi and Sumiko ended it with a broken katana, a discarded wakizashi, and a few fatal
words uttered before the Emerald Throne.
He clenched his fists at the memory, but not because of what Toturi and Sumiko had done.
Had he been in their place, and learned that the half-brother of the new regent attempted to
assassinate the Emerald Champion—and did so on the same night as the Emperor’s untimely
death—he likely would have come to the same conclusions they had.
No, he clenched his fists because of Kachiko, who had foolishly tried to engineer what
amounted to exactly what the former Champions had accused him of—a Scorpion Clan coup. Now,
though, thanks to Ikoma Ujiaki, perhaps at least some of the damage could be undone.
A soft rattle at the door. Shoju turned as it slid open. A Dragon Clan bushi assigned as one
of his guards stepped into the room, followed by a servant bearing his dinner. He waited as the
woman crept into the room, her head bowed, eyes carefully averted—
Shoju tensed. Something was wrong. It took him a few heartbeats to find a cause for his
alarm; it was the Dragon. The man just gaped blankly, as though staring at something far away.
There were four items within easy reach that could serve as serviceable, albeit inefficient,
improvised weapons. The Go board, made of stout sandalwood, was the handiest, but the idea of
using Jodan’s gift as a bludgeon was distasteful—
“Please, Bayushi-ue,” the servant said, “do not be alarmed.”
The woman looked up. It took Shoju only an instant to see past the make-up, the affected
deferential expression, the hunched and servile posture.
“Soshi... Angai, if memory serves,” he said, then glanced significantly at the guard. “Your
doing, I assume?”
The woman looked a little surprised. “Yes, my lord.” She gave a rueful smile. “My deception
is clearly not as foolproof as I hoped. And, yes, the kami of air gleefully obfuscate the senses of the
guards, painting the reality they expect to see over that which actually is. I can only ask the spirits
to maintain this ruse for a short time, though, before they grow bored with their trickery.”

887
 Shoju moved to the door, still standing open. A second guard stood in the corridor, gaping
as blankly as his fellow. He slid the door closed.
“Angai-san,” he said, “why have you come here?” He expected her to say, Why, to help you
escape, my lord, which would, awkwardly, necessitate him refusing. He needed Ujiaki, if he were
going to accomplish the things he’d begun to anticipate; he therefore needed Ujiaki to be the one
who engineered his escape. When Angai spoke, though, she said nothing of the sort.
“It is calamity that has brought me to you, Bayushi-ue,” Angai replied, then went on to
recount the catastrophic events that had led to the death of Yogo Junzo by the dark sorceries of a
demon-witch from the Shinomen Forest, and the subsequent evacuation of certain artifacts from the
fallen Yogo Castle.
“And now, those artifacts are here, in Otosan Uchi,” Angai finished. “They are safe, in the
Black Watch compound in the Hojize District, at least for the moment. But...” She shook her head.
“I have no idea how to proceed, my lord, so I have come to you for your guidance.”
Shoju looked again at the Go board, as he digested Angai’s horrifying tale. e Black Watch
were a secretive faction within the Scorpion, dedicated to opposing any dark forces that might try
to insinuate themselves into the Empire—even if it meant breaking Imperial laws to do so. Few even
among the Scorpion knew of their existence, and almost no one outside the clan. When it came to
matters such as those Angai had just described, he trusted them implicitly.
Which meant her calling them a calamity was more than apt—Junzo dead, the vile presence
of a Tainted monstrosity polluting Yogo Castle, the artifacts...
Shoju’s diffuse feeling of anticipation suddenly crystallized into a clearer vision, as though
a stubborn mist had begun to lift.
Perhaps I have not yet failed you, Jodan, my old friend. But it all turns upon the lasting
cooperation of Ikoma Ujiaki—something I may be able to ensure, depending on exactly what Angai
saved.
He picked up two of the Go stones, one black, one white, and turned back to Angai. “Leave
here and find Ikoma Ujiaki,” he said, handing her the stones. “Tell him that you speak on my behalf.
Show him these stones as a guarantee of your sincerity. And then, tomorrow, at this same time...”
He went on to outline what he wanted her to do. When he was done, despite the many
questions she clearly wished to ask, she simply bowed. “Your will, my lord.”

888
 She withdrew, the guard following her out of the room. When they were gone, Shoju glanced
at the Go board, and then out the window, at the city, and Rokugan beyond.
A clearer vision, yes, but not yet truly clear. Still, this much was certain—just as Go needed
an opponent, so, too, did the Empire.

The next day, the door opened once again to admit a blank-eyed guard, followed by Soshi Angai, a
wicker basket slung over her shoulder. She slid the door closed, then bowed to Shoju.
“My lord, the invocation I have used to deceive the guards is a simple one, that plays upon
the naturally capricious nature of the Air spirits. I have the means of producing a more powerful and
expansive effect that will allow us to escape,” she said, gesturing at the basket, “but it requires me
to focus much more attention on the kami, to keep them engaged. I cannot do both invocations at
once.”
Shoju nodded and stepped close to the Dragon guard. “Release this man, Angai-san. I will
not do this while he is enraptured by the kami.”
Angai gave Shoju a doubtful look, but nodded, then relaxed slightly. The Dragon’s eyes
suddenly cleared, and he blinked at Shoju.
“I am sorry for this,” Shoju said. The man tensed, but Shoju grabbed his head and twisted
just so, snapping his neck like a dry reed. He lowered the body to the floor, then bowed deeply to it.
“May Emma-Ō judge you as the loyal servant to the Empire you were,” he said, then turned
to Angai. “You may proceed, Angai-san.”
For a moment, Angai simply stared at the fallen guard. Then she nodded, and extracted a
paper lantern from the basket. She spoke as she prepared to light it.
“Ikoma Ujiaki has arranged for a diversion, an altercation between two groups of rōnin in
the street adjacent to this building. He also has a detachment of Lion troops located nearby, in case
we need assistance in covering our escape.” She moved to strike steel against flint, but paused.
“Bayushi-ue, what of your son? He is also under guard in this house. Will we effect his escape as
well?”
Shoju frowned. He didn’t believe Dairu was in any danger from the Dragon; if anything, he
was likely safer in their custody than he would be nearly anywhere else. More importantly, though,
Dairu must not be associated with the things Shoju may soon have to do. Indeed, he would likely

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come to hate Shoju for those things, but that hatred would be as armor, protecting the future of the
Scorpion.
So Shoju shook his head. “No, Angai-san. Dairu remains where he is.”
Angai again stared for a moment, then turned quickly back to her task.
But there was something else Shoju needed to know. “Angai-san?”
She paused and looked up from the lantern. “My lord?”
“I have been labeled a traitor to the Empire, responsible for the death of the Emperor. Given
that—why are you doing this?”
“Why—because you are my lord, Bayushi-ue.”
Shoju gave a thin smile. “Your loyalty is commendable, but the accusations against me are
grievous.”
“That is true. However, we of the Watch determined that while it was, indeed, Kunshu that
struck down the Emperor, the blade was not wielded by a Scorpion hand. Rather, it was that of...”
She paused, as though reluctant to go on.
“Speak, Angai-san.”
The lantern caught, and began to glow. “We discerned that it was wielded by a Hantei, my
lord. Which cannot, of course, be true.”
“It is not, Angai-san.”
Angai met Shoju’s eyes, then nodded. “Of course, my lord. We are obviously in error.” She
stared into the lantern’s flame, incanting softly. Finally, she blew upon the flame, causing it to gutter,
then brighten; a moment later, the air around them began to swirl, as though a gusty wind suddenly
blew through the room. The breeze disturbed nothing, though, not even fluttering papers.
Her face now taut with concentration, Angai stood. “The air kami will enshroud us in a veil
of deception, so that others see nothing amiss as we leave,” she said, her voice now a strained
monotone, “but only for as long as... as I can maintain my focus.”
Shoju nodded and followed close behind Angai as she moved to the door. He glanced back
once, at the Go set. He regretted leaving it behind, but it was impractical to try to bring it with him.
Instead, he had left it set up according to one of the problems posed in the Shiba’s treatise, one move
away from a win by a famed Scorpion master.

890
Their escape was an anti-climax. Angai’s ritual allowed them to simply walk out of the guesthouse
without incident, past Dragon guards who didn’t acknowledge their presence at all. However, it
taxed her to the brink of exhaustion. Her invocations faltered, and finally failed, a short distance
from the Black Watch compound, a nondescript house in a nondescript neighborhood of the
dilapidated Hojize District. She managed to open the wards that protected the place, before falling
into a faint. Shoju caught and carried her inside.
He was met by a young, intense man named Yogo Itoju. He was, apparently, one of Angai’s
colleagues in the Black Watch, a skilled wardmaster who had provided the means to circumvent
several hastily conceived wards around Shoju’s prison. He bowed deeply to Shoju, then assisted
him in getting Angai onto a futon.
“Bayushi-ue,” Itoju said, “if you wish to rest as well—”
“I do not,” Shoju said. “I wish to examine the artifacts that were evacuated from the Castle
of Learning.”
“Of course, my lord.” He lit a lantern and led Shoju to a stout wooden door. Waving a hand
before it, while intoning a prayer, caused a complex symbol to momentarily flicker within the wood,
like far-off lightning. It faded, and Itoju opened the door. Beyond was a short flight of stairs that
they descended into a gloomy basement.
“These are the items retrieved from Yogo Castle, my lord,” Itoju said. “Many could not be
saved, however.”
“What of the Sword of the Hantei?”
“Lost, my lord.”
Shoju could only return a grim nod. Calamity indeed. But he pushed aside thoughts of the
sword, and instead cast his gaze across the sundry objects that had been saved, mostly scrolls. He
studied their bamboo cases, seeking one in particular, marked by a distinctive series of chips and
cracks. He didn’t see it, and his stomach tightened. If the one he sought was also missing, then it
would be beyond mere calamity—
No, there it was. Relieved, he turned to Itoju.
“I appreciate all that you have done, Itoju-san. Go, see to Angai-san. I wish to examine these
artifacts, to determine what has been saved—and what has not.”
Itoju placed the lantern down and bowed. “As you wish, my lord.”

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 When he was gone, Shoju moved all of the artifacts except for the distinctive scroll to a side
table. Had this item fallen into the clutches of the Shadowlands, or even just someone with nefarious
intent, it may have spelled disaster for the Empire.
Shoju knelt and rested his hands on the table. Depending what he did here, it might spell
disaster yet.

It is indeed a Black Scroll, Yogo Junzo had said.

Shoju, visiting Yogo Castle as the newly ascended Champion of the Scorpion Clan, had
given Junzo a sharp look. He’d stood with the Yogo daimyō in a strongly barred and warded room
deep beneath the castle, to reveal to him the wonderful and terrible things that were kept here, in the
clan’s custody—including this, kept in its own, ponderous vault.
It seems such an innocuous thing, Shoju had said.
Junzo had merely given a thin smile. And yet.
There are twelve. Where are the others?
We’ve ascertained that four have been previously opened, Junzo had replied, at various times
in the Empire’s history. The remaining eight were dispersed across the Empire, so that no one party
would be able to open them all—or, at least, do so easily.
And if one is opened, what would be the effect?
Based on such accounts as are available, there seems to be little discernible effect
whatsoever, Junzo had replied. It is only if the knowledge within is acted upon by a mortal that their
terrible power is realized.
Shoju had studied the scroll case, an unremarkable tube of plain bamboo, marked with a
distinctive series of chips and cracks that only Junzo—and now, Shoju himself—would recognize
as significant.
And what terrible power does this one offer? Shoju had asked.
It is called The Skin of Fu Leng, and is said to reveal the most intimate and damning secrets
of one mortal to another. The latter, using their own blood, must inscribe the name of the former
upon it, in a clearly deliberate act.
And the cost? Shoju asked.
Of using this particular scroll? We do not know. What we do know, however, is that it brings
the Empire one step closer to the return of the most dire evil in existence.

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Shoju stared intently at the scroll case, as though doing so might offer more insight into the vile
artifact. He was still staring at it when the lantern Itoju had brought began to flicker. Shoju lit a
candle from it, then continued his contemplative regard of the profoundly dangerous relic.
He considered the events that had brought him here, to this moment. One, in particular, stood
out. It had been one of the very last things Hantei Jodan had said to him, only hours before his death,
in the Imperial gardens.
This game is now yours, Shoju-san. I am sure you will find no lack of opponents, old and
new.
He had meant the Go set he had gifted to Shoju, but Jodan had also gifted him the burden of
the Throne, as Daisetsu’s regent. He had trusted him to put right the many things that, even now,
continued to go so wrong, leaving the Empire more fractious than ever.
But the situation was far worse than just a fractured Empire. As regent, he had received
disturbing reports regarding cracks in the integrity of the Carpenter Wall, despite the best efforts of
the Crab. That, the attack on Yogo Castle, and the death of Junzo had convinced Shoju that this
disunity not only worsened, it did so in the shadow of a mounting Shadowlands threat to Rokugan.
The game is now yours, Shoju-san.
But the game needed an opponent. And, to that end, Shoju needed Ujiaki. The loyalty of
Angai and those like her notwithstanding, if Shoju was going to do what he needed to do—to become
what he must be—he needed the Lion firmly at his side.
I may have not yet failed you, Jodan, but to do what you have bidden me to do, I must
undertake a terrible thing. I can only hope you will not hate me for it.
Shoju picked up the scroll case. A final moment of hesitation, as he reflected on the potential
consequences he would eventually face. The ancestral sword of the Scorpion, Itsuwari, specifically
existed to slay the Clan Champion should he ever betray the Empire. But even dying to the sword
paled in comparison to the most grievous fate the Scorpion reserved for egregious treachery—the
sinister, shadowed copse known as Traitors Grove.
Perhaps, if he had more time, he could find another way—
But the darkness was gathering. There was no more time.
Shoju opened the case, and extracted the Black Scroll from it.

893
 He turned it over in his hand. Such an innocuous thing indeed. Just a plain, unadorned page,
albeit with a pliant, slightly moist texture, unpleasantly like actual skin. It was rolled and sealed with
crimson wax.
More words suddenly came to Shoju—those of his divine ancestor, the Kami Bayushi,
founder of the Scorpion Clan. He had spoken them to the First Emperor, the Kami Hantei, accepting
the sacred duty the Scorpion had been given.
I will be your villain, Hantei.
Shoju took a breath, then broke the seal and opened the Black Scroll.

As Junzo had said, nothing happened. Shoju saw that a fine, spidery script filled perhaps the topmost
quarter of the page, recounting essentially what Junzo had told him. The rest of the scroll was blank.
Someone—Angai or Itoju—had been cataloguing the artifacts evacuated from Yogo Castle,
using a brush-and-ink set still sitting nearby. Shoju ground and mixed ink, then nicked his finger on
a sharp corner of the grinding stone. He caused a drop of his own blood to fall into the ink, dipped
the brush into it, then paused in the face of the appalling thing he was about to do. He could still
simply put the brush down, return the Black Scroll to its case, and—
And what?
Ujiaki was, like Kachiko, an opportunist. His allegiance was true today, but it would
eventually shift. What would Shoju do then, besides continuing to have failed Jodan, and Rokugan?
No. Again, it was clear that he needed Ujiaki and, by extension, the Lion, to remain by his
side. But he also needed to know Ujiaki’s loyalty would be as absolute and enduring as Angai’s—
at least, until Shoju had done all of the things he needed to do. After that, it wouldn’t matter.
Lowering the brush to the page, Shoju wrote a name.
Ikoma Ujiaki.
A moment passed, then crimson splotches appeared on the page, as though unseen blood
dripped upon it. The ruddy dollops spread, wicking across the page, joining, becoming characters,
then words. In a moment, it was complete.
Shoju read what had been written—a complete revelation of the most personal, most hidden
secrets of the man that was Ujiaki. He was, indeed, an opportunist—but also much, much more.
The bloody script faded, Ujiaki’s name with it. It didn’t matter, though; Shoju would not
forget what had been written. Rolling up the Black Scroll, he returned it to its case—

894
 “Bayushi-ue?”
Footsteps came down the stairs. Soshi Angai appeared, her expression taut. She bowed.
“Angai-san,” Shoju said, “I am glad to see that you have recovered.”
“I have, my lord, although—” She shook her head. “Your pardon. I was awakened by a dark
and disturbing dream, which has left me unsettled.” She opened her mouth, as though to say more,
but just closed it again. “In any case, Itoju-san tells me you have been down here throughout the
night, my lord,” she said. “If I may ask, is everything alright? Do you need any assistance?”
Shoju nodded. “I do, Angai-san. I need you to once more arrange a meeting for me with
Ikoma Ujiaki, to discuss a matter of great urgency. You need not tell him this, but a new threat to
the Empire has arisen.”
Angai’s eyes widened slightly. “Again, if I may, my lord—what is this threat?”
Shoju looked at the scroll case, then back at the Soshi.
“Me.”

895
Mere days ago, Bayushi Shoju had been the rightful regent to the entire Empire—bestowed that
honor and responsibility by his own Emperor who trusted him with the safekeeping of their beloved
Rokugan.
How quickly that Imperial edict had turned to ash in the fires of conspiracy.
A weak sun rose over the eastern walls of Otosan Uchi, its rays smothered behind an overcast
autumn sky. Standing on the balcony of the priests’ dormitory, Shoju wished he could feel Lady
Sun’s heat on his skin. His face was unmasked, so as to avoid being recognized by a passerby, both
as a Scorpion and most especially as himself. No one who might see his expressionless features
could possibly recognize or even remember him, much less suspect that it was the once proud
Scorpion Clan Champion now cowering in a shrine at the Lion guesthouse. After decades of wearing
a mask during the day, only removing it to sleep, he doubted if he would even recognize himself.
He had not slept since he had opened the Black Scroll and written Ikoma Ujiaki’s name in
it, and the dull iron tick of exhaustion at the back of his head loosened his grip over his emotions.
Fear. He had not felt fear in so long... The anxiety over his mistakes boiled in his belly. He had
lacked discernment. He had failed to calculate for betrayal in his own house. He had once been the
master of secrets, but his wife’s own secrets and schemes had mastered him, in the end. And the
Black Scroll...
Was that another fatal sin?
Shoju covered his naked face with his hands. It itched in the morning chill, and he longed to
don the mask hidden in his sleeve—to become himself again.
But he was no longer himself. No longer the master of lies, mastermind of the Imperial court.

896
 Below him in the courtyard, a Kitsu shrine acolyte had risen with the dawn to sweep fallen
leaves. The gentle shush shush of his broom across the stone drew Shoju from his griefs. He seized
them within their iron cage once again. He still had work to do. He still had to play the game.
Hida Kisada’s last letter to him, delivered from the Watchtower of Sun’s Shadow before his
ousting, still festered in his mind, the one that reported the latest string of failed battles along the
Kaiu Wall. Hundreds dead. Parts of the Wall itself ravaged to the point of collapse. Alongside the
usual forceful appeal for an increase in resources and troops, Kisada had even questioned whether
it was Heaven’s will that the Shadowlands rise and scourge the clans from this earth.
Was this the spiritual price for the prince’s deicide? Since Hantei Jodan’s death, chaos had
spread like wildfire. The Crab’s unendurable losses at the Kaiu Wall. The Unicorn and Phoenix’s
feuding after Crown Prince Daisetsu’s disappearance with the so-called sorceress Shahai. The Lion
and Unicorn battles with their thousands of civilian casualties and food shortages. The destruction
of Kyūden Kakita and the Crane’s call for revenge against the Lion. His wife’s ill-fated schemes
leading to the crumbling of Scorpion power. The loss of wise, just leadership at court in both Agasha
Sumiko’s and Akodo Toturi’s resignations of their samurai rank, resulting in Kakita Yoshi’s hastily
asserted regency, a position he had already begun to abuse. The Dragon Clan’s subsequent
unprecedented raid of the Forbidden City.
He had attempted to keep the peace through civility during an age where ambition,
warmongering, and curses ripened Rokugan for destruction. And for what? For those vices to
consume him and his clan? They had stripped him of his power, his allies, his home, his family, his
identity...
The young acolyte finished sweeping and moved on to perform morning ablutions at a tiny
fountain—an empty ritual if Heaven had indeed forsaken the whole land for want of purity.
“Forgive me, Jodan,” Shoju whispered into the freezing morning air, watching his words fly
into nebulous fog. “I am no longer the man you once put confidence in.”
Shoju left the balcony and shut the door, engulfing himself in the darkness of his bare,
windowless room. He returned his mask to his face to ward off the dark that caressed his bare skin.
He could be what was left of Shoju here, in the secret dark of his hiding place... But what was left?
The blasphemer who had supposedly murdered the Son of Heaven, his dearest friend? The
blackguard who had allied with Ikoma Ujiaki in bad faith? The betrayer who had delved into dark
magics that his own clan was sworn to guard against?

897
 He lit a lamp, but the cheap oil sputtered. His half-turned gaze caught a twisted shadow in
the corner.
In an instant, the knife concealed in his sleeve was in his hand, and he had advanced three
swift steps into his Ten Strikes of the Sting kata. But the shadow, though crooked and uneven in the
shuddering flame, was his own. He flicked the blade away, staring at his dark facsimile. One
moment, the shadow had horns. The next, wings. Spines. Claws. A scorpion’s tail.
“Was this your fate, Bayushi-no-Kami?” Shoju asked the shadow. Alongside the Mistress
of Shadows, Shosuro, Bayushi became what no other Kami dared become: the villain that only the
Emperor could trust. An opponent for the whole of Rokugan.
Shoju sat seiza, his knees pressed decorously upon the austere wood floor. The shadow
mirrored him. Yet, the outline, ever wild, could never be called the shadow of Shoju the man. The
crudeness of the flame gave it a life beyond himself, a creative essence that no one could trust
because it followed no form. It was the shadow of a monster.
“Is this what you intended all along, my old friend?” Shoju whispered. “You knew the
ancient histories better than I did. You knew that I could not rule as you had, with light and
righteousness, since I was Bayushi-no-Kami’s descendant. I could not serve Rokugan as your
replacement, and I have now failed when I tried to rule as you had.”
The lamp and its cheap oil sputtered, its impurities finally burnt away, producing a weak yet
tranquil flame.
“Yet you chose me, Jodan,” Shoju said, looking back at his shadow. It was his own shape.
Shoju the man. “I can only do you and your Empire justice by acting as your shadow. As it had in
its earliest days, Rokugan will have its clear villain once more. The Great Clans must loathe me for
more than just being a foiled criminal.”
He nearly clutched at his own heart as the revelation of his villainy rang true within him.
“I must become the face of evil.”
Shoju drew a small calligraphy set from his meager belongings, shielding the paper with his
shadow as he kept his back to the flame, writing his letter with swift, slashing strokes. A secret code.
After tucking the finished missive into the breast of his kimono, he breathed easy. The last of his
old self, his failed self, could now die.
“I am sorry for what I must do, Jodan.”

898
 He drew his mask off and studied its crimson lacquered face. The indiscernible expression
had served him well for many years since his gempuku, when he had come of age. But now, he
needed to act with less subtlety.
“I need to announce my rebirth to the world,” he insisted, almost apologetic as he smeared
black ink across his old crimson face, erasing its artfulness and nuance with bold, destructive
strokes.
He set the mempō down on the cold floor so the ink could dry. The changed visage grinned
with horrible delight. His new face.

The wrinkles on Ikoma Ujiaki’s brow split his aging face, his greying hair wreathed around him like
a primped lion’s mane tied to a withered wine gourd. Yet the zealous courtier’s step drummed with
condence. A performance.
Shoju bowed as the Lion entered, letting him speak first.
“My honored guest,” Ujiaki greeted him, his words establishing the hierarchy of roles, with
Shoju as a visitor, subordinate to the host. “It seems that your mask now wears an even more dour
expression than it had when we first met. I hope your accommodations have not been the cause of
such disfigurement.”
Shoju bowed again, tilting his ink-stained mempō toward the floor. “Your generosity, and
the cunning manner with which you have secreted me here at your family’s shrine, have been
admirable, Ikoma-sama, and I can only offer my gratitude at this time. I assure you, this alteration
to my visage is a mere outward representation of the change we hope to bring to pass.”
“I see,” Ujiaki said. “I am glad to see you so manifestly dedicated to right the wrongs done
to our clans.”
“And to us,” Shoju added, carefully placing the first few steps in his dance of diplomacy
against Ujiaki. The Black Scroll’s revelations had suggested the need for a personal approach.
“Please be seated. We have much to discuss.”
Shoju knelt upon the hardwood floor as Ujiaki sat upon a brown silk cushion his silent
attendant had brought with them into the bare dormitory room. They faced one another with the
flickering lamp between them.
“So far, the court is in an uproar,” Ujiaki reported. “Yoshi is torn between the Lion’s military
maneuvers in his homelands and your sudden disappearance, nearly driven to the same madness that

899
caused Kyūden Kakita’s destruction. The representatives of the Dragon, Crane, and Lion demand
an immediate manhunt throughout the city to search for you, none more vehemently than Mirumoto
Hitomi. She might have been disgraced by her ineptitude as a jailer if I had not first blamed Yoshi
publicly for such incompetent leadership.”
The satisfaction on Ujiaki’s face flowered into enjoyment, but Shoju caught the lie. Through
the Black Scroll, Shoju knew that Ujiaki had been dismissed from court, but the Lion had not yet
felt the need to share the political disgrace he had sustained with his new ally. It was likely that the
dismissed Lion courtier had merely spread his public accusation of Yoshi in a tea house where the
other courtiers often congregated, a truly Scorpion tactic that the Lion claimed as a proud and honest
court victory. Perhaps Ujiaki’s corruption did not require as delicate a touch as he thought.
“And what of my clan? What has become of the Scorpion in Otosan Uchi?”
“Some have retreated to the Scorpion guest estates, which have been thoroughly searched
many times over for you, where they remain under house arrest for the time being. The Scorpion
samurai in the Imperial Guard have been imprisoned in the gatehouses. In both cases, I have ensured
that Lion forces were the ones to confiscate their weapons and keep watch over them. When the
time is right, they can be rearmed and liberated.”
That had been Shoju’s idea, but he did not care that Ujiaki had claimed it.
“It seems you have thought of everything, Ikoma-sama.”
“I owe much of my foresight and prowess to my lord Anakazu, of course,” the Lion
confessed, with the feigned humility expected of a courtier, ignoring the fact that he was pulling
strings behind his superiors’ backs.
“Naturally,” Shoju acquiesced. “But your individual calculated efforts have been a credit to
your clan. You cast off the passions and compulsions that dictate Yoshi’s and Hitomi’s actions in
this time of turmoil, striking a grave blow to the enemies of the throne. An honorable and worthy
achievement.”
A hint of Ujiaki’s shame wavered in his eyes—that doubt that gnawed upon the old Lion’s
every self-righteous thought and clawed-for goal. Shoju might have seen it only because the Black
Scroll told him of its existence, festering invisibly behind the proud façade. The Black Scroll’s
forbidden knowledge had tutored Shoju in every intricacy of Ikoma Ujiaki’s soul—his desire, his
fear, his self-doubt, his pride, his frailty. The secret shame that drove his ambition.

900
 As a young bushi, Ujiaki had been severely injured in battle, and after many months of
agonizing convalescence, had never regained the full use of his sword arm. To hide it, he had boasted
about his recovered strength, only to be defeated in a training exercise by a young Akodo Arasou,
then barely more than a child preparing for his gempuku, a defeat which humiliated Ujiaki in front
of the Lion Clan Champion. He had then been silently dismissed from the military and sent to Otosan
Uchi to serve as a courtier instead. However, there he would find even more shame as his private
reputation as a broken soldier transmuted into a public reputation as a tactless fool, his brash,
inexperienced approach to court politics earning him the swift judgment of the clan representatives
since he seemed to embarrass himself every time he opened his mouth. Eventually, when his misstep
in court had lost the Lion a major landholding and trade negotiation, his own clan would have
dismissed him from court as well had not Akodo Kage interceded on his behalf, magnanimously
asking Ikoma Anakazu to mentor him for a time.
Many years had passed since then, and Ujiaki had grown adept and cunning in his role as a
courtier, but the wounds of his original shame still lingered deep inside his heart, whispering to
Ujiaki that he was a failure to his clan both as a bushi and as an ambassador. However confidently
the aged Lion might prance as if in his prime, doubts still flowed in his mind, especially now that
he had been truly banished from the Imperial court by Yoshi. He was now living through the
complete disgrace that he almost felt he deserved years ago, all his years of shrewd schemes meaning
nothing in the face of the truth that rankled inside his head. He was a failure and time had finally
proven it to be true.
Shoju studied the pitiful smear of shame hiding behind Ujiaki’s performative self-assurance.
A wounded animal is the easiest prey.
“Leaders with the righteous hand of Heaven on their side have no need of shame,” Shoju
said. “And we act with the faith that our cause is just and that Heaven will laud our efforts while the
forces of Earth will bend to our will.”
“Perhaps,” Ujiaki said, his well-practiced suspicion of the Scorpion creeping into his voice.
“But we must still proceed with caution. We must not underestimate our enemies.”
“Indeed,” Shoju replied. “As they should not have underestimated you.”
Ujiaki frowned, wary of poisonous flattery.
“My clan is in your debt,” Shoju continued, careful to keep his eye contact truthfully straight
and his shoulders bent in slight submission. “You alone have given me the hand of an ally when no

901
one else dared stand against the falsehoods spewed against me. You have acted in wisdom and
strength against those who have defied the Emperor and your clan. Your challenge of Yoshi’s power,
your maneuvering of your clan leaders into opportunities for victory, and your generous mercy in
granting me and my clan a chance to seek revenge against our enemies. These are actions I place
my confidence in, and I trust you to help me obey the desires of the late Emperor and bring his will
into being.”
The distrust in Ujiaki’s eyes hardened, but the shame still stared longingly out, lapping up
Shoju’s words. “Trust is a rare virtue in such times,” he insisted, waiting for Shoju’s motives to play
out.
“You have arranged a foundation upon which we can build. All we need now is a public
victory against Yoshi, Hitomi, and the other dissenters that will show the strength of our side,
drawing the ambivalent clans to our cause. Only such a feat would ensure our hold over the throne.”
“A public victory, you say?” Ujiaki mused. That need for public acknowledgement of his
abilities, a reassurance of his true worth as a Lion, consumed him. The bitterness of having to forgo
evermore the Lion Clan’s celebrated glory on the battlefield had never left the broken soldier. Now,
the chance to have it again would heal him. The Lion’s teeth bared in hunger. “Well, a show of force
from the Lion demands a military strategy. What if we retake the palace and oust Yoshi the pretender
from his castle?”
Shoju would have smiled behind his mask if he hadn’t trained himself out of the habit years
ago.
“Are you suggesting another military coup?” He paused, pretending to think on the subject.
“It seems impossible with the Army of the Rising Wave and the Imperial Legion protecting the
Forbidden City.”
Ujiaki shook his head, his greyed mane swaying. “The void left behind by Toturi and Sumiko
has given us a unique opportunity with the Imperial Legions,” he explained. “When there was a
need in the past, the Lion Clan Champion has taken control of them for the Emerald Champion.”
“But your clan champion has been slain.”
“Matsu Tsuko was murdered by Crane treachery,” Ujiaki hurriedly countered, the flames of
his designs consuming his tact. “Since her replacement has yet to be chosen by the Lion families’
daimyō, leaving the Imperial Legion with no direct leader, it would be simple for someone to claim
the troops in Tsuko’s name.”

902
 “A masterful stroke of politicking,” Shoju said, careful not to sound overeager nor
overindulgent toward Ujiaki’s desire for esteem. “And who could we call on to enact such a bold
move on behalf of the Lion martyr?”
“Perhaps Lord Anakazu could be persuaded.”
“No,” Shoju said, shaking his head. “We do not have time to secretly meet with Lord
Anakazu to persuade him to adopt our cause. If Yoshi resorts to a manhunt to search for me to save
face, then Hitomi will throw her army into that effort, spreading her troops thin across the capital,
making it easy for the Imperial Legions to cut through her forces and retake the palace. We must act
now.”
“Before a new Lion Clan Champion can be chosen,” Ujiaki agreed, his brow angled in deep
thought. The balance between caution and vanity inside of Ujiaki wavered, as on a weighted scale.
One more piece of gilded lead, and the whole scale would tip.
Shoju sat up straight, folding his arms across his chest. “We don’t just need someone with
military experience, Ikoma-sama. We need someone who can lead the Imperial Legion to fight
against the injustices dealt to your clan, someone who understands the losses you have sustained. A
true Lion warrior who can rally for justice.”
Ujiaki’s frown deepened, a darkness descending across his entire face. His ngers curling
white knuckled around the hem of his sleeve. He no longer wrestled with the details of Shoju’s plan.
He wrestled with himself.
Do you dare take up your chance for glory, Ujiaki?
“I...” Ujiaki began, his unsure words gaining strength as he uttered them. His chin lifted as
his confidence curled his mouth into a cunning smile once more, the plan igniting golden thoughts
of glory and praise. “I can do it. I can lead the Imperial Legions to retake Otosan Uchi from Yoshi
and Hitomi. I can lead our victory.”
Shoju allowed himself a small smile. The old Lion was tamed. All he had to do was pull on
the leash.

Smoke rose above Otosan Uchi. A northern wind had caught the dark column, twisting it into an arc
that curved ominously in the iron grey winter sky.

903
 Like a scorpion’s tail, Shoju thought, staring at it to catch the wind’s direction. As planned,
the wind would drive the blaze over the wall of the Forbidden City and into the palace itself, sparks
raining from above. The wind whipped up the blaze, scattering it wildly.
Upon regaining their arms and ghting their way out of their house arrest, a contingent of
Scorpion samurai still loyal to him had swarmed at the northern end of the Forbidden City, setting
fire to the wooden eaves of the roof. These bushi had already organized a battering ram and were
slaying dozens of fire brigade members and unsuspecting Unicorn samurai stationed in the nearby
Hito District. Blood ran into the streets, flowing down toward the shores of the River of the Sun.
Drawn to Shoju’s beacon of fire and blood, Kakita Yoshi had ordered a hasty evacuation of
the palace, sending Seppun Ishikawa and his guards to the northern end of the Forbidden City to
both quench the fire and stop the breach. And as Ujiaki had predicted, Hitomi’s thinly scattered
troops withdrew from their manhunt across the city, rushing in disorganized packs toward the palace
to face the Scorpion who were obviously attempting to retake it in the name of the true regent,
Bayushi Shoju.
“It seems the ruse worked,” Ujiaki said, nearly congratulating himself from atop his horse.
Shoju stood at the courtier’s heel, disguised in the clothes of a plain Scorpion ashigaru, his
mempō hidden away in his sleeve to allow his face to conceal his identity.
“Yes, now it is your turn,” Shoju replied absently, selecting Ujiaki’s armed escort from
amongst the Lion and Scorpion soldiers huddled around him.
This main force of samurai had hidden inside the walled courtyard of the Lion embassy as
the feigned attack at the northern end of the palace raged. A Lion scout crept in through the gate and
made her way to the mounted Ujiaki.
“The bulk of Hitomi’s troops have already entered Kanjo District,” she said, bowing
respectfully as she reported the news.
“Excellent,” Ujiaki acknowledged. “Now we can cut through the rear of her army and catch
her unawares. They will not suspect the Lion’s teeth mingled with the Scorpion’s sting stabbing into
their backs.”
Shoju gestured for the gate to open.
“Onward to our goal!” Ujiaki shouted, pointing a new war fan toward the southern gates of
the city, his eyes shining with the empty gleam of a reclaimed pride.

904
 “You will follow Ujiaki and set the pace,” Shoju commanded, signaling the escort to keep
Ujiaki safe and in line. “Carve out our entrance to the palace through the city to the palace’s southern
gates. Regroup within the palace walls, outside the palace doors.”
“Kill all who cross our path!” Ujiaki yelled. “Victory only!”
Shoju nodded his dismissal, melting into the crowd of samurai as they flooded out of the
embassy and into the streets. Like a torrential rain, their footfalls thundered across the cobblestones
as the Lion and Scorpion samurai combined. The sounds of shouting and steel rent the air ahead as
they smashed through a straggling detachment of Hitomi’s forces. Ujiaki’s samurai swept through
them like a tidal surge, the Lion in his company making swift work of the unwitting Dragon. Behind
Ujiaki’s forward push, the Scorpion troops scanned the edges of their progress, cautious of an
ambush or routing force.
Drawing back from the slaughter, Shoju noticed a Dragon force snaking its way out of
another side street to flank their main forces. He barreled ahead to catch them at the bottleneck. One
Dragon warrior had already cut down a dozen samurai, his sword flashing as he led his company’s
charge into the rushing river of Scorpion and Lion. It was Mirumoto Raitsugu, Hitomi’s lieutenant
who had first arrested Shoju in the palace.
“Surround them!” Shoju commanded, dragging back his small company to draw Raitsugu’s
soldiers into the street. Raitsugu saw the ploy and tried to order his troops back into the alley, but
they had already been cut off by the sea of legionnaires that washed into the gap. One by one, the
Dragon fell, yet Raitsugu kept urging a retreat, hoping to save even a handful of his bushi.
Lunging into a gap in the battle, Shoju snatched the back of Raitsugu’s collar and slammed
him to the street. He stamped on the young man’s sword hand, pinning it to the ground, but Raitsugu
drew a short knife with his other to plunge it into Shoju’s calf. The Scorpion slashed at that wrist,
sending the knife flying, and the Dragon cried out in pain. Raitsugu struggled, trying desperately to
rise, but Shoju slid the point of his blade into a gap in the Dragon’s armor, precise enough to draw
blood without being lethal.
“Foolish little Dragon,” Shoju warned. “Do not make me kill you. I intend to let you live. I
have a message I want you to deliver to Hitomi and the other clan representatives burned out of their
snake den.”
“Who are you?” Raitsugu wheezed, still attempting to free his sword arm.
Shoju forced himself to smile.

905
 “The Regent of Rokugan.”
Confusion spread across the man’s face until Shoju’s meaning became clear.
“Traitor,” Raitsugu spat. “Murderer! You slew the Emperor!”
The words raked across Shoju’s heart. He had not slain the Emperor, but how many would
die this night so that he might prove his villainy to the Empire? He had not been a traitor, until now.
“You will carry my message,” Shoju repeated, pressing down harder on Raitsugu’s chest.
“Tell the usurpers that I have reclaimed the palace that they defiled with their treason. There, with
the authority of my masters, I will convene the court, and I expect the daimyō and champions of the
Great Clans to attend under my rightful rule. Anyone who defies this order will drown in the
nightmares I will unleash from beyond the Carpenter Wall.”
Raitsugu’s eyes widened in horror at those words, the realization draining the blood from
his face. A tremor of shock wavered amongst the nearby Scorpion and Lion who could hear Shoju’s
voice.
Shoju stepped back from Raitsugu, and the Dragon struggled to his feet, trying to regain his
footing so he could lunge forward with his sword. Shoju kicked the sword away before snatching
the front of the lieutenant’s armor. With meticulous accuracy, he sliced into Raitsugu’s side, biting
between the tiny lacquered plates of his armor and slicing into the young man’s flesh. Raitsugu
screamed, clutching at Shoju’s hand, trying to force the blade away.
“Tell them,” Shoju whispered to his prey, cutting deeper into Raitsugu, careful to miss any
organs that would make the wound lethal. “Tell them what you have heard.”
He dropped the Dragon samurai. Raitsugu clutched his side. “Curse you, Shoju,” he cried as
his blood loss slowly dragged his consciousness from him. “May you burn in a thousand hells, you
demon...”
Shoju paused. His lie had taken root. From that moment, in whatever histories Rokugan
would have, Bayushi Shoju would be recorded as its most nefarious demon, murderer of the Son of
Heaven and servant of the Shadowlands.
If your hate spreads across the thousand hearts of Rokugan and unites them against me, I
will gladly be consumed by its fire.
His fate sealed, Shoju signaled his contingent to rejoin the march toward the palace.
Led by Ujiaki, the Lion and Scorpion forces smashed through the southern gates, scattering
the fragmented units of the Army of the Rising Wave and swallowing Ishikawa’s trapped guards,

906
bushi of all sides falling in ferocious combat for the Forbidden City. Unlike Hitomi’s takeover,
which had only cost a handful of Scorpion due to Yoshi’s careful interference, Shoju’s seizure of
the palace saw the blood of nearly all the clans and the Imperial families spilled within the halls of
the Forbidden City. Guards, samurai, a few straggling courtiers, and servants lay strewn within its
walls.
Shoju stepped over them all on his way to the throne room.
He did not bother lighting a lamp. He simply shut the door behind him, padding the
memorized steps up to the throne in the blackness. He stood before the Emerald Throne, the symbol
of power for the Empire he now sacrificed his soul for.
“Forgive me, my friend,” Shoju whispered for a final time to his dear Emperor’s spirit. “I
have retaken, with blood, what they stole... that which you had dared to give me. I hope you will
not regret your choice in the afterlife.”
Because I will not.
Shoju lowered himself onto the throne. He leaned into its cold lacquer, his eyes adjusting to
the dark. The room lay empty before him, as if it were his tomb.
He had given up his true legacy, his family, his friendships, and his soul, all he had to offer,
to save the Empire. And none in it would mourn his loss.
A small price to pay if Rokugan lives on.
He checked his pocket for the encrypted letter he had written—his confession—a final star
of hope that he would take into the abyss with him. This letter alone would tell the truth while the
rest of Rokugan swallowed the lies he had crafted this day. Even Kachiko.
The thought of his wife choked Shoju, and his hand rose unbidden to his chest to suppress
the pain. She was born to become the Shosuro daimyō, one of his most trusted vassals, his master
of spies, yet the astrologers of the Yogo had warned that she must become the champion’s wife to
avert a calamity befalling the clan. She had been his equal in all aspects, and he had loved her. She
was the only person who could understand the burden of the sacrifice he was making now. And she
would never know about it. She would hate him along with the rest, and she would teach that hatred
to their son Dairu, to preserve the Scorpion after Shoju’s death.
“I trust you to rebuild what I have destroyed, Kachiko,” Shoju whispered. “I hope you have
learned something from all this, for now I abandon you to the res of Rokugan’s judgment of our

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clan for my sins. But I know that you will protect it as you have always done, with a bravery and
cunning only you can wield.”
With that final sentiment, a parting prayer to the ghost of his old life, he locked his heart
against all he had once held dear.
He drew his ink-ruined mask from his sleeve, fitting it perfectly to his face. He almost sighed
in relief. He felt like himself once more. He was finally what he was destined to become.
He was his shadow.
He was the darkness.

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It was the third goblin, lifeless and half-buried in the chalky dirt, that caught Hida O-Ushi’s eye.
She could just make out the acorn hue and the glint of gold thread on its patchwork armor, and
several grooves clawed into the faded heraldry of the Lion Clan. Another trisected diamond. The
same symbol mentioned in the report. She didn’t even want to consider what it meant.
“Did you see that?” she asked.
Hida Shizuko nodded as her own pony swayed to avoid the corpse. “Heraldry, perhaps?”
“Goblins don’t use heraldry.” At least, they never had before. The Shadowlands was the
antithesis of order; organized tactics wasn’t in its nature.
But Oguri’s report had been explicit about the coordination of the goblin attacks on the
Watchtower of Sun’s Shadow. And while the Yasuki family heir was prone to exaggeration, the
Mantis shugenja had backed up his words. History recalled numerous failed attempts to organize
the goblins of the Shadowlands. Had someone, against all odds, finally succeeded?
“Etsuji has forced our hand,” her father had said. “Reinforce his position until we can muster
a permanent replacement. I will have words with my cousin about his... impetuousness later.” She
remembered his grim features as he met her eyes. “Do not let the tower fall.”
Laughter. O-Ushi followed Shizuko’s eyes to the riding ponies behind them, two dozen Crab
samurai whose voices tangled like spider threads in the wind. Behind each sat an attentive but empty
suit of armor. A wordless declaration of war in the Empire, but out here, it was a survival tactic. It
doubled their numbers to the eyes of mindless predators, a deterrent that had worked so far.
They must have noticed, as she did, the increasing number of goblin bodies and the scarred
land as they traveled. That was why they joked atop their riding ponies, their laughter like weak

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pinpricks of light in the dark. Maybe she should bark them into silence, as her brother Yakamo
would have done, lest they attract undue attention. But truthfully, she was grateful for their chatter.
O-Ushi’s vision glided from one familiar face to the next. That Yasuki Nogami was the
loudest did not surprise her. A childhood spent in stables and marketplaces left him with an eternally
raised voice, and time spent in Hida dōjōs had done little to correct this. Riding beside him, Hiruma
Kyokai, her childhood rival turned drinking buddy, was the opposite. He smirked quietly, eyes
raking the horizon, his scout’s instincts forbidding even a moment of lowered guard. If their joviality
attracted attention, surely he would spot it.
Eager to keep up was the rookie, Kaiu Fusao, baby-faced, mop-topped, and failing to hide
his nervousness behind a lopsided smile. He swayed in his seat, gripping the bridle with his lone
hand. His heavy saddlebag, an inventor’s cache, jingled as he bounced. The thought of the boy
joining them at the watchtower made her stomach ball up like crushed paper. But Shizuko had
vouched for him, so she set her anxieties aside.
Had it been up to her, she would have undertaken this journey by herself. But it was foolish
to enter the Shadowlands alone, and she could not accomplish this mission without help. So she had
not argued when her friends formed a squad around her, falling automatically into their roles. She
hadn’t even needed to ask.
She was glad they had come. But seeing them now only made her stomach churn. She had
to bring every one of them back home. This couldn’t be like the last time...
Yasuki Nogami’s words rose above the muddled debate. “The West Sumo Champion this
year will be none other than Kakutarō-zeki. Mark my words.”
“Perhaps three years ago,” Kyokai softly countered. “Kakutarō achieved many victories,
true. But he is too old now, far past his prime. No, the smart bet is on Mitsuteru-zeki. His star is on
the rise.”
Shizuko turned in her saddle. “That’s a bet I would take. Mitsuteru lost to the Champion of
the East last year, and I heard he’s been slow to recover from his shoulder injury.”
“I’ll take experience above confidence,” Nogami agreed. He raised his blaring voice to O-
Ushi’s back. “And surely the Little Bear agrees.”
O-Ushi looked over her shoulder. Two dozen pairs of eyes looked back, eyes cradled in the
dark rings of poor sleep, eyes longing to see anything that reminded them of home, not an endless

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blasted terrain they couldn’t trust. Collectively gazing on the illusion of normalcy, and the hope that
she would maintain it.
“Call me ‘Little Bear’ again, and your backside will take the hard ground!”
The line erupted into laughter. Nogami grinned with a red face while others slapped his back.
Shizuko snickered by her side.
“Besides,” she added, “You’re both wrong. Banzo is going to win.”
Her comment summoned incredulous scoffs. Even Shizuko looked at her sideways.
Kaiu Fusao shook his dandelion-fluff head. “Has anyone ‘below the curtain’ ever become
Champion of the West? What is he, second year? First?”
O-Ushi turned away. Another goblin body, half-buried in the dirt. The trisected diamond
carved into its broken armor. Something goblins never did. Or so she had believed.
“That fact is precisely his advantage. No one knows his strategy. No one is prepared for him.
In my experience, that is the greatest advantage of all.”
Hiruma Kyokai’s voice cut above the others. “My lady.” He pointed beyond a jagged tear in
the crimson fog, where they could barely make out the crumbling skeleton of the Kaiu Wall,
desiccated and unmanned, and beyond, the tower. She frowned. It may have been a remote part of
the wall, difficult to reach, and resources spread too thin. But even so, how had the Crab let this
section fall into such disrepair?
And what was Kyokai pointing at? “What do you see?”
“Not see, my lady. Smell.” He tapped his nose. “Can’t you smell it, too?”
O-Ushi tilted her head, inhaling the red fog.
Shizuko grimaced. “Smoke.”
And it was. Smoke, carried on the breeze, coming from the direction of the tower.
“Perhaps it is a signal fire,” Nogami remarked. “That is the purpose of the watchtowers, after
all.”
O-Ushi had vivid memories of Hida Etsuji, a man she’d long ago been instructed to call
“uncle.” In two years commanding the Watchtower of the Iron Hammer, he’d never once lit the
bonfire signals. It had been his biggest point of pride. Not once.
This was not signal fire smoke. Whatever was awaiting them had already begun.
“There is some high ground nearby,” Kyokai chimed in. “I will scout ahead.”

911
 “No,” O-Ushi commanded. “We stick together.” She raised her voice to the others.
“Everyone fall behind Kyokai. Let’s see what we’re up against.”
“That will slow things down,” Kyokai remarked, but did not press. He knew better.
They fell in line. Shizuko met her gaze for a moment, then looked away. She didn’t need to
say that O-Ushi was being overly cautious. That glance spoke volumes for her. Neither was it
necessary for O-Ushi to explain herself. Shizuko knew, better perhaps than any other here, that she
wasn’t about to leave anyone on their own in the Shadowlands.
Not after last time. Not ever again.

The fog thinned and then broke at the top of the rocky hill. The River of the Last Stand, like a cloudy
undulating serpent, wound around the embankments of the crumbling Kaiu Wall. The Watchtower
of Sun’s Shadow rose high on the other side of the river, just above a staging ground used for Crab
offenses.
Shizuko whistled. “This is a trick.”
It wasn’t.
A tide of armored goblins camped just beyond the collapsed watchtower gates. At least a
thousand, divided into sheets, various formations. No mindless charges, they maneuvered in an
orderly manner, awaiting signals. A trisected diamond fluttered on each monster’s personal banner.
Oguri hadn’t exaggerated. Someone had organized Shadowlands forces. Trained them. Led
them. But who?
“Whoever is left will need more relief than we can offer,” Shizuko whispered.
O-Ushi turned to the engineer. “Kaiu-san, your assessment?”
She knew it was bad because Fusao was carefully considering his words. “One more major
offensive, and the tower will fall.” He took a breath. “I mean, literally. The stronghold is going to
collapse.”
She swallowed a lump.
He gestured toward the broken structure. “They breached the curtain wall and hit the weight-
bearing columns. I’m not sure what weapons they were using, but they knew exactly where to strike.
It’s put additional stress on the foundation... those are the cracks you see there. And they’ve taken
the front gate and knocked down the walls of the masugata. There is no choke point anymore. Even
if the keep stood, full breach is inevitable.”

912
 O-Ushi closed her eyes. A crab needed both pincer and shell to hold its ground. They had
neither. Like sand through her fingers, any chance at victory had slipped away.
Fusao immediately began yammering about backup plans: fast-hardening mortar,
repurposing debris, and weight redistribution. He was so young, and hated displeasing his superiors.
He wanted to give good news, not bad. He proposed farfetched solutions, spoke of traps.
Centuries ago, these walls stood de-ant and ready for any onslaught. Now, years of unmoving
stone crumbled beneath the weight of time, just like relentless waves had eroded the stone cliffs of
Earthquake Fish Bay. Gazing upon the ruins, she could almost hear her brother Sukune as he’d told
her in the depths of the Shinomen: “The Crab are the Wall, and that is the problem. If we remain
unyielding, unwilling to change, then we will crumble.”
He was right. This was a fool’s errand. ere was nothing to gain now. Only lives to be saved.
It’s what he would do if he were here.
“Enough. Spilled sake won’t return to the bottle. I won’t try to hold a tower that has already
fallen.” Her father would understand. He’d have to. “New plan. Evacuate and withdraw.
Feasibility?”
“Can’t use the horses,” Nogami said. “They’ll panic at the sight of undead. You’d have to
wade the river on foot and push through. I don’t see how it can be done.”
Shizuko’s eyes flashed. “The escape tunnels Oguri used would be just as effective an entry
point. We could bypass the attackers entirely.”
“Assuming they haven’t caved in,” Kyokai remarked.
“They haven’t,” said Fusao. His confidence made O-Ushi smile. “I know where to find the
entrance. It’s against the embankment.”
“Where do the tunnels lead?” she asked.
“The courtyard,” Shizuko replied. “We’ll be unexpected, of course. But that might work to
our favor.” She gestured to the river. “The Mantis’s boat, the Poison Tide, will still be at the docks.
We can take it back down the river. It’ll be faster, especially with survivors.”
“And they won’t be able to follow.” O-Ushi nodded. It could work. She looked to the others.
“Objections?”
Two dozen steeled gazes looked back, determined and ready.
Her heart swelled. To retreat, to abandon the wall, was not the instinct of any Crab. But these
samurai trusted her. They believed in her. By Osano-wo’s thunder, she wouldn’t let them down.

913
 She sent Yasuki Nogami back with an escort of four. If something went wrong, at least they
would return with news of the tower’s collapse. The rest dismounted and worked through the ritual
of donning their armor. Normally, heavy armor was reserved for warring against samurai. In the
Shadowlands, mobility and field of vision were better than layered protection. The Kaiu armorers
would never admit it, but against oni, with their giant’s strength and otherworldly weapons, it was
not as if armor could protect against being crushed, or swallowed whole, or burned alive, or torn
limb from limb. But there were goblin archers among the throng pressed against the side of the
watchtower, so armor was mandatory.
The tunnel entrance was disguised well. As the vertex for many escape tunnels and sewers,
it had to be. But Fusao found it readily enough, and he and Shizuko forced it open.
Moments stretched into immeasurable time in the pitch dark of the tunnels. Only their
lanterns, and the muted sounds of battle above, suggested that a world existed beyond their noses.
O-Ushi held her breath, willing the thundering earth not to collapse, just a little longer. But the
others weren’t flinching, especially not little Fusao, so she kept her worries buried beneath a stone
face.
The door appeared abruptly. O-Ushi slammed into it. It stuck fast. Jammed. Beyond, steel
clashed above human shouting. And something else, something high-pitched, something shrieking
and gurgling...
“Fusao!” she barked.
The Kaiu scrambled to the front. He procured a wedge-shaped iron device, two paddles
pressed together, which he jammed into the crack of the door. Digging out a lever, he hooked it into
the prong protruding from the side and began to crank. Wood groaned as the paddles separated, until
the planks splintered and finally gave way.
A screaming shark’s mouth bolted across the threshold.
O-Ushi smashed her warhammer against it. It crumpled. She leapt over the body, her unit
right behind, pouring into the open courtyard of the tower keep.
Crab and goblin solders clashed throughout the open courtyard. Bodies baked in the sun.
Blades flashed crimson and black, entangled with the screams of human and monster.
O-Ushi unleashed her battle cry, throwing herself at the closest horror. Bones snapped
beneath the force of her warhammer. She carved a trench through the box-shaped courtyard, finding
herself shoulder to shoulder with unfamiliar faces, Etsuji’s samurai and Mantis sailors. The

914
defenders found new energy as her unit joined the fray. She lost herself in the violence, her only
thought to push them back, clear the courtyard, buy some time...
The goblins had not anticipated reinforcements. As one, the Crab forced the creatures back
into the narrow corridor from which they’d invaded.
Large shapes loomed beyond the retreating rabble. Fresh goblins rushed to reclaim the
corridor, to flood the courtyard with new fighters. The Crab grimly readied for another wave.
Not while I breathe. O-Ushi drew all of her strength into her belly, then roared as she swung
her warhammer, smashing it into the stone wall. The archway collapsed like the sternum of the
goblin trapped beneath it, filling the gap like the streams of viscera leaking between the cracks.
Her muscles burned, but she’d bought them some time. She turned to the reclaimed courtyard
and found a sea of dirty faces staring back.
Etsuji’s defenders had not fared well. Fewer in number than she’d hoped, eyes pink and
sullen from lack of sleep, they stoically stepped over fallen bodies, severing the heads of the dead
so they would not stand again. The Mantis sailors looked especially bedraggled; open disdain
dripped from their every step.
O-Ushi’s unit returned. All accounted for. She released a sigh. Good.
“Where is Commander Etsuji?” she demanded. No introductions. They all knew who she
was.
One defender, a lieutenant, approached. “You just missed him, my lady. He is leading the
offensive to drive the attackers away.” He bowed. “I am his lieutenant, Hida Nagayasu. Commander
Etsuji entrusted this tower’s defense to us.” He looked hopeful. “Are you here to reinforce our
position?”
Hiruma Kyokai shook his head. “Charging out into the battlefield? Does he really think he
can take on those numbers by himself ?”
“You’ve never served with Etsuji,” Shizuko replied. “I once saw him confront twelve-to-
one odds and come out on top. He’s like a tsunami. His tactics have served him well so far.”
“We’re on borrowed time,” came the Kaiu’s urgent reminder.
O-Ushi turned to Etsuji’s lieutenant. “We’re leaving. Grab whatever you need.” She glanced
up at the smaller watchtowers along the courtyard’s perimeter. “Send someone to signal Etsuji back
to the keep. We’ll fight our way to the dock. I trust the boat is still there?”
The lieutenant didn’t budge.

915
 “I just gave you an order.”
“With respect,” Nagayasu replied, “you are not my commander.”
Faces turned to regard her. He was right. They were samurai pledged to Etsuji’s personal
service. She could not supersede him. She didn’t have rank.
She spoke through clenched teeth. “Hida Etsuji is my father’s cousin. You are pledged to
serve my family.”
“But not you,” he replied. “Our orders are to hold this tower. We’ll die before giving the
Shadowlands so much as an inch.”
His words were measured, but his tone hid nothing. He wasn’t about to follow the orders of
a teenage girl. Not when it meant facing the rage of Lord Etsuji, and his power to strip them of
station, to brand them as cowards.
She caught the eye of a nearby Mantis. “I suppose you feel the same?”
He said nothing, but the glance he shared with the others suggested they didn’t care for the
idea of dying here. Which was good, because she needed them to sail the Poison Tide.
Perhaps she could withdraw without Etsuji’s men. But that would mean abandoning them to
their fates. The Crab could not afford that. And if they fell, their bodies would only add to the
invaders’ numbers. She had to try to convince them.
“The Great Bear has called you back,” she said.
Eyes widened. Whispers arose among Crab and Mantis alike.
Nagayasu raised his voice. “Remember your orders! think of the glory that Lord Etsuji will
share when the Crab celebrate how he retook this tower! He would not pull back! The Great Bear
would never order his samurai to abandon their posts! Trust Lord Etsuji’s plan, which has brought
us this far, and—”
O-Ushi slammed her fist into Nagayasu’s gut.
He crumpled and lay still.
She raked her gaze across bewildered faces. They were tired. Injured. But also proud. They’d
followed their commander into the jaws of hell itself. For some, this may have been their only chance
to be remembered by history, to have their families elevated through service to the clan. Each one
was an asset to the Crab. Each one with a family awaiting them.
I am not leaving anyone behind.

916
 “A crab will sometimes change its shell, especially when it is broken.” She let her words
settle over them. “Hida Etsuji has led you not to victory, but to ruin! He has abandoned you to seek
his own glory, left you in crumbling defenses that will not hold. A worthy leader does not waste
lives to make some point. If you fall here, you weaken the Crab. You will give your bodies to the
Shadowlands, to rise again, to draw blade against your kin! What is so admirable about dying here
when you could still do good? About obeying a leader who disregards your very lives?
“But if you pledge yourself to me, there will be other chances at victory. Other chances, but
only if we survive!”
In the distance, something cracked. Like stone splitting, or a hundred bones breaking.
The ground exploded in the courtyard. The dust fell, revealing a massive boulder, surely a
chunk of the broken curtain wall. A mass of armored bodies fell away from the projectile, and a
dozen more crawled up from the dirt beneath it. Animated skeletons. They drew corroded blades.
There was no more time for speeches. Deeds, not words, was the Way of Hida.
She slammed her fist into the skull that charged her. It shattered like porcelain.
She shouted. “You can die for Etsuji, or you can live for the Crab!”
Their voices returned as one: “For the Crab!”
The defenders rushed as one into the wave of undead. As stone subtly controlled the
unstoppable current of a river, O-Ushi guided the overwhelming momentum of her spinning
warhammer until she was a constantly moving thresher of broken bones.
A body bumped into her. She spun into the face of a Mantis samurai. He flicked viscera off
his farming implements. “So you’re O-Ushi. Kudaka sent you?”
“My father sent me,” she replied. “Can your boat take us all downriver?”
“Lady, if you can get us out of here and neck-deep in a shōchū bottle, I’ll take you all the
way to the Island of Silk.”
Fair enough. She lifted her voice, “Fall back to the docks!”
Then she sprinted towards the nearest ladder leading up onto the wall, sweeping shambling
bodies aside. Shizuko appeared beside her, spear in hand. “Docks aren’t this way.”
“Someone needs to signal Etsuji.” Perhaps he’d made the wrong call in trying to hold the
keep instead of drawing back. But he was still family. He was still Hida. Better that he should live
to learn from his mistakes than die for them.
“Perhaps the enemy drew him out on purpose.”

917
 O-Ushi grimaced. “Then this will be a quick errand.”
The wall had three tiers, with ladders reaching up to each exposed floor. Narrow slits in the
wall afforded space for archers to aim at the bottom of the wall, and battlements allowed a view of
the Shadowlands beyond. O-Ushi strapped her hammer to her back and climbed up to the first floor,
Shizuko following wordlessly. Her hand went to the conch shell horn in the pouch by her side.
Would Etsuji be able to hear it?
From her vantage, she spotted goblins crawling over the debris of the collapsed hall,
squeezing through an opening at the top. From the other direction, cracking bodies swarmed
impossibly without muscle or flesh. If they reached the bottom of the ladder, she and Shizuko would
be trapped, nowhere to go but up...
Shizuko plunged her spear into the floor, then strung her bow. “I’ll hold them off,” she said.
“You’ll have plenty of time to signal Etsuji.”
“No good. You’ll be overrun.”
“I can bottleneck them at the foot of the ladder. You’ve seen how fast I can fire arrows.”
“And if they rush you, you’ll have to deal with them alone.”
She placed a hand on O-Ushi’s shoulder, met her eyes. “Yoritoko-chan. Please.”
O-Ushi hesitated. Few ever addressed her by that name, her true name, a name chosen to
honor her grandmother, not a nickname that caught fire. Hearing it transformed Shizuko into the
girl who headbutted her during a fencing lesson, a girl who snuck in pastries and shared them in
secret when they all should have been sleeping. A girl who once shot three pheasants with one arrow.
If she trusted anyone with her life, she trusted her doshi, her dōjō partner.
“If something goes wrong,” she replied, “I’ll toss you off myself.”
Shizuko grinned and nocked her bow.
O-Ushi’s mind raced as she scrambled up the ladders, trying not to focus on the sound of
Shizuko’s bow beneath her, or to keep count of how many arrows she’d loosed. Instead, she recalled
one of the standing orders hammered into Hida students at the dōjō: to pull back at the war-shell’s
call, to “return to the wall.” Etsuji would know what it meant.
Third floor. The battlements before her. O-Ushi ung herself to the edge and kissed the horn’s
bronze mouthpiece.
Her hand fell limply to her side.

918
 Beneath her was a sea of walking bones. Skeletal remains marched shoulder to shoulder in
strict formation, while goblins rushed between their ranks. They stretched across the horizon, a flood
of claws and skulls and fangs, mixing in a chaotic array that made O-Ushi’s head spin, yet marching,
steadily, to the drumming of her panicking heart. Flickering shapes arose among them, as if
spontaneously bursting into being. Maws attached to headless torsos rippling with muscle.
Monstrous centipedes with human hands for claws. Enormous spiders with the horned heads of
bulls. A horned giant with glowing lava flowing in the cracks of its stone skin. They were the Kuni’s
encyclopedia of oni sprung fresh from the page and given nightmarish life. Even in the tapestries
hanging from her father’s grand hall, she’d never seen so many twisted beings in one place.
Something wet and quivering rose from their mass. Her eyes caught on the headless, limbless
body, its red-stained armor glinting wetly, like a cockroach’s shell. The corpse was carried on a flat
palanquin, the columns of which were the torn and reconnected limbs of a riding pony. His severed
parts had been messily pinned to the armor, flailing limply, as if their bones had been dissolved.
Where the head had been, rose instead the stained personal banner of Hida Etsuji, driven far into the
neck stump, replacing his spine. Painted over his personal heraldry, the symbol of the trisected
diamond faintly glowed in unearthly fire. The watchtower commander, now one of Jigoku’s
warbanners.
Beyond the horrors rose a mountain.
Her vision blurred. Her eyes refused to focus on the leviathan rising from the hordes, limp
bodies falling away. Her clouding vision caught sight of its rusty iron-scaled flesh, three serpentine
tongues writhing independently of its abyssal maw. Its thick mane was a forest of webbed
nightmares, each spine a clawed tree trunk sprouting down its back and reptilian tail. And even
though it was too distant to make out further details, when it opened its eyes, and three pinpoints of
light grew into glaring torches, a diamond shape that overcame her vision, the hairs on O-Ushi’s
neck stood from her flesh, and all warmth fell from her numb limbs.
It saw her. It knew her.
Its name tumbled from her lips.
“Akuma.”
And then she was falling.
Her hand caught a ladder’s rung, wrenching her shoulder and banishing the clouds from her
eyes. O-Ushi reeled from the pain. Every fiber of her being rejected what she’d just seen. Only the

919
most depraved storytellers whispered of the oni lord, a being sprung from the hubris of an Elemental
Master in the earliest days of the Empire. It was slain centuries ago. It did not exist.
No one knows his strategy. No one prepared for him.
That is the greatest advantage of all.
Her feet hit the floor running. A thousand thoughts battled for her mind. In the Crab’s history,
there had only been a few nightmares that could be called “oni lords.” e Crab had never stopped any
of them from entering the Empire. But the Kaiu Wall hadn’t existed back then, either. If they could
rally, if she could get to her father...
A cry from below. Shizuko fell, entangled with a goblin, off the edge.
Ice crystalized in her blood as her friend’s body crumpled against stone debris. Red splashed
onto the mortar, but O-Ushi could not tell if it was hers, or the goblin’s. Shizuko lay still, far too
still, as if to contrast against the hammering of O-Ushi’s mortal heart.
She let go. Pain stabbed through her ankles as she tumbled down, sliding next to Shizuko’s
red-drenched side. Four skeletal horrors and six dead goblins lay nearby. Even drowning in worry,
in the wake of what she’d seen, O-Ushi felt pride at how many foes her friend had slain.
It didn’t look so bad. Most of the blood was the goblin’s aer all. She cast her friend a
reassuring look. “Don’t move. I’ll carry you. We need to—”
Shizuko’s eyes, dull and wide, were not moving.
It was as if all warmth, the very motion of her heart beating, was sapped into the cold ground.
The earth moved beneath her knees, brown clouds still drifted across the rusty bowl of the sky, and
yet she felt anchored in place. Her breathless chest threatened to tear as she was pulled in two
directions: a past where her sunshine-faced friend was alive, and the present moment, where she
wasn’t.
Numbly she drew her small knife and ensured her friend would not rise again. She forced
herself to her feet.
And stumbled. Her vision blurred again, a tide welling into her eyes and down her cheeks.
She felt her stomach twist like Etsuji’s bloody banner in the wind, writhe like the tongues of the
marching oni lord.
I told you not to hold them off! I told you! I...
She trusted her. Trusted her to live. Like Shizuko had trusted O-Ushi when she’d led them
all into this dark place. Shizuko had plans. There were maps she wanted to draw. There were boys

920
she liked. There were foods in Iuchi lands she’d wanted to try, Asahina sakes she’d wanted to drink.
They were going to see the sumo championships in just a few weeks. They were going to go together.
Now, she wouldn’t even receive a burial. She was the Shadowlands’ now. Her body, her future, and
perhaps even her soul. Once again, a friend had set aside her own future and followed O-Ushi into
these cursed lands. And once more, she would return alone.
Just beyond, Kaiu Fusao watched, stunned. Returning for her. Searching for words.
Would he be the next? How many others would she lead to their doom? It was never easy
for her to make friends. Those she had, who really understood her, were precious. How many more
would the Shadowlands take away? How long until she was completely...
No. Don’t be selfish. Now is not the time.
She made no effort to hide the tears streaking her cheeks as she stood again. She squared
Fusao in her determined gaze. “We are out of time.”
They sprinted for the docks. She carved a path for them both through the bones and blades.
They said nothing. Shizuko’s lifeless face, and the coal-beacon eyes of Akuma no Oni, burned into
her mind. She couldn’t afford another moment. She had to warn her father.
There would be time later, time to burn Shizuko’s favorite incense. Time to record her name
and recall her deeds. To ask for forgiveness. To mourn her loss. A time would come for the dead.
But now, she had to tend to the living. She had to tend to the Empire.

921
922
8th Day of the Month of Hida, 1123, Toshi Ranbo

Surely, they must be able to hear my heart beating.

“My lady,” Bayushi Yojiro said from where he knelt in the tea house, “your request for us
to meet you here was framed in a most informal way. That certainly does not match your current
demeanor.”
Bayushi Kachiko stopped, snowflakes on her cloak becoming glistening beads of water in
the warmth of the tea house. She acknowledged that she’d heard Yojiro with brief eye contact, but
her gaze locked on that of the other occupant, Doji Hotaru.
Hotaru can hear it, my heart. She knows that I’m afraid.
Hotaru had tensed, reflexively readying herself for battle, like the warrior she was. “Kachiko,
what is it? What’s wrong?”
Kachiko had rehearsed what to say for her entire walk through the winter garden of the Toshi
Ranbo Governor’s Palace. Yet, no matter how often she repeated them in her head, she could not fit
the words properly into her mouth to say them aloud.
Shoju, what have you done?
Eschewing any courtly nuance or subtle subtext, she blurted, “It’s Shoju. He’s reclaimed the
Regency, with the support of the Lion and the Imperial Legions.”
Yojiro exchanged a glance with Hotaru, then they both stood, their tea forgotten.
“Reclaimed? How?”

923
 “By seizing it with force. By spilling blood in the Forbidden City,” Kachiko said, her gaze
still locked on that of Hotaru.
“And the Lion acceded to this?” Hotaru asked. “But Toturi was the one who denounced
Shoju’s Regency as an attempt to seize the Emerald Throne. Why would the Lion then be party to
this?”
“I do not know. And yet, they are. Or, at least, a faction of them is.” Kachiko looked into the
snow-draped gardens, crossing her arms as she did, as though hugging herself.
Shoju, what have you done? We were already suspected of attempting a coup. What will
happen to the Scorpion now? Can the clan even survive this?
“There’s more,” Hotaru said.
Kachiko nodded. It required effort.
“Upon reclaiming the Throne, he—”
Kachiko had to stop, swallow, collect herself. She finally turned back from the window.
“A moment, please. This is very… difficult.” Kachiko took a breath. “After he reclaimed the
Throne, Shoju declared himself an ally of the Shadowlands.”
Hotaru snapped out a curse that would have made an Iron Warrior blush. Yojiro simply
stared at his hands in his lap. Their knuckles had turned white.
“You’re wrong,” Yojiro finally said. “You must be. The Legions would never defend such
depravity.”
Kachiko shook her head. “No one wishes for me to be wrong more than I do, believe me.
But I would not have come to you with something this ruinous if I were not certain.”
She turned again to Hotaru, borrowing what she could of the Crane’s strength and
conviction.
“How did you even hear of this?” Hotaru asked.
Yojiro nodded quickly. “Indeed, we’ve had no messages to this effect—”
“It is winter,” Kachiko said. “Couriers are likely on their way, but they may be days yet.”
She sighed. “This news first came to me from a trusted source in Otosan Uchi, borne by the winds.
I have since had the truth of the message corroborated by augury.”
Yojiro stood and looked, for a moment, in the gardens, as Kachiko had. “Do you really
believe this to be true? You likely know the Master of Secrets better than anyone—to the extent
anyone knows him at all.”

924
 Kachiko glanced at him. Shoju, aligning himself with Jigoku? Of course not.
And yet, here they were.
“No, I do not,” Kachiko finally said. “I believe that Shoju has some other purpose in making
such a claim.”
Hotaru shifted slightly, the floorboards creaking. “Several days ago, Shiba Katsuda’s
shugenja, as well as those tending the memorial shrines here in Toshi Ranbo, claim to have
experienced especially dark and unsettling dreams, all seemingly at the same time. Is it possible that
Shoju actually has engaged with the darkness in some fashion? Perhaps even unwillingly?”
Kachiko started to shake her head, but it collapsed into a desolate shrug. “I don’t know. And
does it matter? Shoju has publicly made this claim. Whatever his true purpose might be, he has
labeled himself the most egregious sort of traitor to the Empire. The path he’s begun to walk has
only one destination—”
Kachiko stopped, the words in her throat suddenly too painful to form. Hotaru, Yojiro and
the teahouse blurred into smears of color. A lifetime of courtly discipline wasn’t enough to stop it
from happening.
She didn’t care. And neither, apparently, did Hotaru, who finally stepped forward and took
her in her arms. Kachiko sank gratefully into the embrace. Shoju was gone. Her only son was with
the Dragon, but had he survived the coup? She might have no one else in her life besides Hotaru.
And she needed the Doji at her side, to help her remain strong, and to keep reminding her what true
and honest service to the Empire looked like.
But for how long will she be there? Can we survive this, or will I lose her, too?
Yojiro cleared his throat awkwardly.
Kachiko lifted her head. “Oh, for Benten’s sake, Yojiro, allow me a moment to grieve, at
least. Shoju is my husband, and—” She pulled back from Hotaru. “And one of the people I love
most in this world.”
Yojiro shuffled his feet. “I understand, of course. But I must ask, what of our clan, my lady?
Our champion has apparently fallen to corruption.” He glanced at Hotaru. “Perhaps, after we’ve had
some time to fully consider the ramifications, we should—”
Again, Kachiko cut him off, pulling herself back from Hotaru’s embrace and straightening
her kimono.

925
 “We do not have the luxury of such time. With the aid of the Lion, Shoju has seized control
of the capital. They likely intend Toshi Ranbo to soon follow.”
Yojiro nodded. “Very well. At the very least, it is clear that the championship of our clan
must be assumed by someone else. Bayushi Dairu is not yet of age. Moreover, our last reports have
him in the custody of the Dragon in Otosan Uchi. And Shoju’s brother, Aramoro, is…”
“Accused of attempting to murder the Emerald Champion,” Hotaru saved either of the
Scorpions from saying.
Yojiro continued. “You are Dairu’s mother. It must be you to lead our clan, my lady.”
Kachiko turned back toward the garden, suddenly caught on the verge of manic laughter she
wouldn’t be able to stop. Champion of the Scorpion Clan. Such a title, together with that of Imperial
Advisor, would cement her place as a fulcrum around which all politics would turn. She could
repudiate Shoju, and make the Scorpion the beating heart of Rokugan.
She had spent a lifetime working toward this. Every scheme, every manipulation, every debt
and favor had brought her closer… No longer would her power come from being the wife of the
Scorpion Clan Champion, or the Emperor’s chief advisor. She would wield power of her own. And
with it, she and Hotaru, the Scorpion and the Crane, could shape Rokugan into the mighty and
glorious Empire it was meant to be.
All she had to do was say yes, and her next step would take her onto the path she’d sought
for so long, the one leading to the fulfillment of her ambition.
Kachiko closed her eyes. Ambition. It was a drug, wasn’t it? A drug as insidious and potent
as opium from the City of Lies—and just as destructive. The very same ambition that had driven
her to seek the things she’d thought she’d wanted, the power and status, had ultimately brought them
all to this terrible place, hadn’t it?
It had cost the Emperor his justice, and it had cost the Empire its princes.
It had cost her Shoju, and may have cost him his very soul.
What might it come to cost Hotaru?
You will help me set this right.
Kachiko turned back. “I accept the mantle of clan champion. And as my first and only action
in that office, I am stepping down and naming you my successor, Bayushi Yojiro-ue.”
She bowed deeply. Hotaru looked taken aback, but recovered quickly and bowed as well.
Yojiro just stared for a moment. “My lady, I cannot—”

926
 “Yes, you can,” Kachiko said. “You must. The Scorpion needs you to be its leader.” She
smiled sadly. “This is no gift I am giving you, Yojiro. This is a burden. You will be faced with
leading our clan through a time of terrible ordeal.” She glanced at Hotaru. “The champion of a clan
in such circumstances must possess a certain purity of spirit, a nobility and grace that—that I simply
do not have. But you do. You can bear this millstone of responsibility about your neck, and still
keep your gaze upon the Empire. I do not have that sort of strength.”
Yojiro’s gaze filled with doubts, even objections, but he finally just nodded. “Very well. I
accept this duty you have given me.” He turned to Hotaru. “I must spend some time seeing to my
clan’s affairs, Champion Doji. But I would ask for an audience with you at our earliest mutual
convenience.”
Hotaru bowed her agreement. “Certainly, Champion Bayushi. However, I have affairs that I
must attend to within my own clan first.”
“Your brother,” Yojiro said.
Kachiko blinked. She’d heard of Kuwanan’s arrival, but not what affairs it required Hotaru
to address. Of course, she’d been profoundly distracted.
Hotaru nodded. “Yes. Kuwanan arrived yesterday. He has demanded to meet with me. I
believe he intends to challenge me for the leadership of the Crane Clan.”
“He—what? Why?” Kachiko asked.
“I intend to find out when I meet with him shortly,” Hotaru replied. “If true, though, it means
that the Championship of the Scorpion is not the only clan leadership issue today.”

Hotaru strode into the small courtyard known as Judgment’s Retreat, nestled between the
Governor’s Palace and the adjacent Chief Magistrate’s Estate. It was here that most formal matters
of reputation and law were settled, whether that was a duel, a trial, or execution. A broad circle of
clean, white sand dominated the courtyard, intended to reflect the light of Lady Sun onto whatever
judgment was being rendered here. It was an impressive effect in the summer, but much less so amid
the expansive white snows of winter.
Bayushi Yojiro walked at Hotaru’s side. Kachiko followed, no longer disguised as a guard
but wearing a simple kimono and her signature mask. A small guard of Imperial Legionnaires trailed
at a discreet distance.

927
 Doji Kuwanan stood on the far side of the circle, one hand resting on the pommel of Omeka,
his ancient Kakita blade forged almost four-hundred years ago. Behind him stood a pair of Daidoji
Iron Warriors.
Hotaru frowned. Word had already come to her that Kakita Yoshi had apparently chosen to
support Kuwanan’s claim for the Crane Championship. The presence of Daidoji warriors hinted that
Uji might be leaning the same way. The thought made her heart sink, though not because of the
apparent dissatisfaction with her leadership. Rather, it meant disunity fractured the clan much more
deeply than she’d realized. Given the immense gravity of Shoju’s claim to have aligned himself
with their most ancient and bitter enemy, now was not the time for disunity.
Hotaru stopped, and Kuwanan bowed. She returned it, then silence fell, filled only by the
cold whisper of wind blowing out of the Lion lands to the west, and the Unicorn lands beyond them.
Kuwanan stepped forward, his thick jacket shifting in the inconstant breeze. “Sister, I have
come to contest the leadership of the Crane Clan. I believe that you are unfit to continue in the office.
It is my hope that you will step down willingly, but if you will not do so, then I will respond
accordingly.” His hand tapped the pommel of Omeka, once.
Hotaru cocked her head. “Brother, I do not understand. You are impetuous, but not foolish.
I must therefore believe that you have a rational reason for this—or that you think you do.”
Kuwanan sniffed. “The reason stands behind you. You have made your feelings regarding
that…” He stopped, took a breath. “That woman clear.”
Hotaru glanced back at Kachiko. The Scorpion’s face remained impassive behind her mask,
but Hotaru saw the concern darkening her gaze. She offered a smile meant to be reassuring, then
turned back to Kuwanan. She wished she could have discussed what she was about to do with
Kachiko. But as she herself had said, we do not have the luxury of such time.
Please, Lady Benten, help Kachiko to understand what I am about to do. But if she will no
longer conceal herself, then neither will I.
“Yes,” Hotaru said. “I love Bayushi Kachiko. But neither of us would harm our clans in the
pursuit of that love.”
Kuwanan barked a humorless laugh. “That is not what you told father, Hotaru. You made it
abundantly clear to him where your loyalties lay.”
Hotaru just stared for a moment. Told father? Made it clear to him? How? She shook her
head. “Kuwanan, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

928
 “I am talking about the letter,” Kuwanan shot back. “The letter that you wrote to him,
confessing your obsessive fascination with this woman. I found it, Hotaru, among father’s personal
effects. It banished any doubt, and placed my feet on the path that has brought me here, to this
moment. The Heavens themselves have endorsed this purpose.”
Kuwanan truly believed what he was saying.
Her heart began to race. In the next few moments, she faced losing either Kachiko, or her
brother, or quite possibly both.
A dark thought. Had Kachiko done something? But a single glance back at her showed no
subterfuge, no guilt in those dark, warm eyes. She was as mystified as Hotaru was.
“I wrote no letter to father about Kachiko, or anyone else,” Hotaru said.
Now it was Kuwanan’s turn to look confused. “It was written in your hand, sister, and
secreted away in a false compartment among father’s effects, in the Crane Guesthouse in the
Forbidden City.”
“Kuwanan, just a moment ago was the first time I have professed my love for Kachiko
publicly. And I do so now without reservation,” Hotaru looked again at Kachiko. Her face had now
gone as hard as stone, though.
Hotaru’s chest tightened. Had she gone too far after all, by announcing her love for Kachiko
without consulting her first?
When Kachiko spoke, it had nothing to do with Hotaru, Kuwanan, or any letter to Doji
Satsume.
“Hametsu,” she hissed, through clenched teeth. “His smell clings to it. He is the Shosuro
daimyō, and has ready access to the best forgers, and to agents that could certainly plant a forged
letter in your clan’s guesthouse.”
Hotaru turned back to Kuwanan. “I did not write this letter, Kuwanan.”
Hotaru could see her brother turning hers and Kachiko’s words in his mind, trying and failing
to get them to mesh with what he’d obviously come to believe. Finally, he spoke.
“I must concede that you and this Scorpion woman are convincing. But being convincing is
not the same as offering proof. In the aftermath of the Battle of Three Trees Village, you told me I
should accept that the Emerald Magistrates had found no proof of foul play in father’s death. This
time, I have found what appears to be proof, so it follows that your convincing words may be just

929
that—words.” He shook his head. “I have learned to accept the judgment of the Heavens in matters
such as this one. I will therefore do so again, now, in this place of judgment.”
He stepped toward the middle of the circle and lifted his hand, palm up, over Omeka’s hilt.
“I challenge you, sister, to a duel to determine the truth of your claims about the letter I discovered.
If you are lying, then you will die, and I will assume the championship. And if you are telling the
truth, then I will die, and you will carry on leading the clan.”
“Brother—”
“It can be no other way. As long as the matter of that letter remains unresolved, it will be a
yawning chasm between us.”
“And so Hametsu gets what he desires,” Kachiko said bitterly. “Hotaru dead—or you dead,
and Hotaru heartbroken because of it. Damn him.”
Hotaru locked eyes on her brother. She had no desire to cross steel with him, much less harm
him—or kill him. Kill her own brother. She would make one, final attempt to dissuade him.
“Kuwanan, before you do this, you need to know what has just transpired in the capital,”
Hotaru said, then went on to describe the news Kachiko had brought just that morning. Perhaps the
dire circumstances would be enough to convince Kuwanan to withdraw his challenge, to see that
now was a time for unity, not confrontation.
Kuwanan’s face darkened, but he shook his head. “All the more reason to address this once
and for all, sister. If you have been compromised by these Scorpion, and they are in league with—
”
“Brother, no,” Hotaru snapped. “Do not presume to implicate an entire clan in the
malfeasance of one of its members, even if it is the champion. After all, you believe that I have
committed wrongdoing. Do you believe all Crane are culpable in it?”
“No, of course not,” Kuwanan said, then turned to Yojiro. “My apologies for implying such
a thing, Bayushi-sama.”
Yojiro offered a slight bow, enough to acknowledge the intent of Kuwanan’s words, albeit
just barely.
“Kuwanan,” Hotaru said, “is there no way I can convince you to put this aside? To focus on
the greater good of the Empire?”
“That is what I’m doing, sister.”

930
 She stifled the instinct to argue, as they had done so many times. What words of hers could
reach him when he doubted her very integrity?
A sudden sorrow filled her, similar to when she’d killed Akodo Arasou only a short distance
from where she now stood. She had caused the death of a good man then, the brother of one of her
best friends, Toturi. And now faced the prospect of the same thing.
Except, this time, it was her own brother.
Hotaru turned to Yojiro. “Champion Bayushi—as magistrate, you are the lawful authority
here. Do we have your leave to proceed with this matter?”
“You do,” Yojiro replied, his voice grave.
“Wait.”
Bayushi Kachiko stepped forward and faced Kuwanan. “This whole matter is predicated on
your belief that your sister’s relationship with me is detrimental to your clan and, therefore, to the
Empire. If that is so, then allow me to…” She stopped and swallowed. “Allow me to end that
relationship, here and now—”
“No!” Hotaru snapped. “No, I will not accept that!” She gestured Kachiko back and assumed
her stance. “Just as our two clans are stronger together, particularly in times such as these, so are
we. I will not allow expediency to end either of those relationships. Your brother may have set this
in motion with his vile scheming, but it is our burden to resolve it.”
Kuwanan’s gaze shifted from Kachiko to Hotaru. Again, a glimmer of uncertainty clouded
his eyes, but as Hotaru readied herself to face him, it once more hardened into resolve.
Hotaru gripped her naginata and readied herself. She had divested herself of Shukujo, the
Crane ancestral sword. She did not want this duel, but if it must happen, she would not risk drawing
her own brother’s blood with the sacred blade.
Hotaru let her mind collapse into a single point of concentration, one that acknowledged the
existence of Kuwanan and Omeka and nothing else. Her brother’s blade was preternaturally sharp,
able to slice through armor with relative ease. She must adapt her tactics accordingly.
And yet, I must somehow not kill my own brother…
Time passed, their eyes locked. Hotaru had already planned her move, could trace in her
mind the path her naginata would follow. She only awaited—
Kuwanan suddenly and minutely shifted his weight. Hotaru only knew it because it changed
his position relative to Lady Sun’s light, altering the apparent color of his pupils slightly. Hotaru

931
moved, tracing her naginata through the path she had already chosen for it, adjusting it a fraction to
account for small variance in her brother’s strike. A soft tap, as the shaft of her naginata connected
with the flat of Omeka and knocked it aside.
Kuwanan stumbled slightly, already compensating for a resistance to his strike that never
occurred. That, and the momentum behind Omeka’s swing, gave Hotaru the perfect opportunity.
She could flow as Water, reversing the course of her own blade, then strike as Fire, a ferocious
killing blow delivered into the left side of Kuwanan’s back. Instead, she became Earth, using her
own momentum to back up, opening a gap between her and her brother, one that would take
advantage of her weapon’s longer reach.
Kuwanan nimbly spun about, Omeka raised. His gaze once more met Hotaru’s, and a truth
passed between them.
Hotaru would not fight to win. She would fight, instead, to not lose. The inconclusive nature
of the contest was, itself, a message to Kuwanan. She didn’t want to win, because she didn’t want
to fight at all.
Kuwanan flung himself forward, kicking out with his left foot, Omeka’s strike right behind
it. Hotaru again deflected his blade, dodged his foot, then spun and slammed the shaft of her naginata
against his shoulder, bludgeoning him sideways. Again, it opened an opportunity for her. Again, she
became Earth, and simply backed away in a defensive crouch.
So it went, one strike after another. Omeka would swing, and Hotaru would answer by
avoiding and disengaging. They finally both broke apart, catching their breath.
“Kuwanan, please, I don’t want to kill you!”
“I don’t want your indulgence, sister,” he snapped back. “I only want you to treat me as a
serious opponent—!”
Kuwanan flung himself forward in mid-word. Many times, Satsume and Toshimoko had
both admonished Hotaru to not become lulled by an opponent’s voice. But even they had never
likely envisioned her dueling her own brother. He gained a flicker of initiative, just a fraction of a
heartbeat, but it was enough to prevent Hotaru from fully deflecting Omeka’s strike this time.
Kuwanan kept enough control over his blade that he was able to reverse it, and slash it into her right
side.
Omeka bit deep.

932
 Hotaru heard Kachiko cry out, but fought to keep her focus on the battle. Pain, deceptively
distant and dull, crept away from the wound and burrowed into her torso. She gritted her teeth in the
face of a stark instant of truth.
With the next strike, one of them would die.
No. I will not lose my brother, but neither will I lose Kachiko.
Hotaru dropped her naginata with a soft thud.
Kuwanan had tensed to deliver another blow, but froze, his eyes widening. “You are
conceding?”
Clutching her side, Hotaru shook her head. “No. But neither will I defend myself. If you
truly believe in your righteousness, then you must strike me down.”
“I won’t slay an unarmed—”
“If it’s the only way to bridge this abyss you’ve placed between us, then you must.”
“You are subverting the judgment of the Heavens!”
Hotaru grimaced, swaying. Kachiko and Yojiro both stepped forward, Kachiko reaching for
her, but Hotaru warned them back with a raised hand. “I am accepting that your decision is
Tengoku’s judgment. So choose, brother, and end this. The darkness is gathering. There is no more
time.”
Kuwanan gripped Omeka, staring at Hotaru past the blade.
She limped closer to her brother. “Kuwanan, father taught me that the Heavens may offer us
guidance, but, in the end, our choices are our own. He believed that declaring oneself merely to be
an instrument of the Heavens was a weakness, not a strength.”
Kuwanan’s eyes widened. “I don’t believe father would say such a thing!”
“Why not? Because he was noble and pure of spirit, a paragon of virtue?” Hotaru forced a
thin smile. “Father could be those things, yes. But he could also be harsh—and demanding to the
point of cruelty. He expected perfection—he expected the impossible.”
Hotaru realized she was trembling, although whether it was from anger, sadness, or pain,
she was not sure.
“Brother, you saw him as the hero he was, but he was also a man. He recognized his flaws
and failures, the greatest of which was his failure to protect our mother from herself.”
Father… I know now that you thought you were trying to strengthen and prepare us: her for
the scrutiny of the Imperial capital, and me for the scrutiny of clan leadership.

933
 You were trying to ready me for such a day as this.
She drew another breath and limped forward, gritting her teeth.
You wanted me to be perfect because you knew you were not.
Omeka’s tip now hovered a hand-span from her face. Pain flowed from her wound like liquid
fire. “His successes and failures were not Tengoku’s, Kuwanan. They were his own, a result of the
choices he made in his life. He must answer for them when Emma-Ō takes stock of his life. So, too,
will you. So make this choice, brother, and be prepared to account for it to the Heavens, not to
attribute it to them.”
Omeka’s tip trembled slightly.
“Hotaru,” Kuwanan finally said, “do you truly love this woman? Did you truly not write that
letter?”
“Yes, I do. And no, I did not.”
Kuwanan lowered Omeka. “Doji Hotaru-ue, I concede this contest to you.”
“Good.” As she spoke, Hotaru's legs wobbled under her. “And as your next act of fealty, you
can catch your champion before she falls over,” she gasped. Kuwanan sheathed Omeka and caught
her as she began to topple. Kachiko moved in to assist, while Yojiro told his guards to call the
healers.
“That is twice, now, that I have lost a duel to a wounded and unarmed opponent,” Kuwanan
said ruefully, helping Hotaru out of Judgment’s Retreat. Hotaru managed to push a questioning
glance through the fog of pain. “When you have recovered, sister, I will tell you about Matsu
Kaitokura.”
They hobbled a few paces, then Kuwanan gave Kachiko a sidelong glance. “You claim that
your brother was responsible for this forgery?”
“Without a doubt,” Kachiko replied.
“Then he is the one that must face judgment for this.”
“I agree. However, I ask only one thing,” Kachiko said.
Kuwanan lifted an eyebrow.
Kachiko smiled dangerously. “That you wait until I am there to watch.”
Despite the pain now flaring in her side like a lit torch, Hotaru laughed.

11th Day of the Month of Hida, 1123, Toshi Ranbo

934
Hotaru limped through the open gate. She winced against the icy wind that blew in from the rice
fields sprawling around Toshi Ranbo. Yojiro clicked his tongue at her side.
“I assure you, this is not necessary. I am quite capable of doing this on my own.”
“I would never suggest otherwise, my lord. But I am the Champion of the Crane, this is
Toshi Ranbo, and that—” She stopped and let her gaze wander across the massed ranks of troops
smartly arrayed just beyond bowshot from the city walls. “That is a Lion army. They have put a
great deal of effort in marching here amid the winter snows. It would be rude of me not to greet
them.”
Hotaru kept her words light, but in truth, apprehensive uncertainty gnawed deep inside her,
like her partly healed wound. The first hints of the approaching army had reached Toshi Ranbo only
a few hours after her duel with Kuwanan. Now, three days later, it had finally arrived. To have
marshaled so many troops and marched them through the harsh depravation of winter could only
mean one thing—the intent of its commander was even more dire than the Lion Clan's deadly
reputation.
The same clan that had apparently supported Shoju’s Tainted coup in Otosan Uchi. Hotaru
saw nothing among the tawny ranks to suggest that similar corruption was present here, but the
darkness did not always announce its presence with horror. Sometimes, it cloaked itself in noble
intent.
Hotaru, Yojiro, and their escort of a dozen Imperial Legionnaires stopped a short distance
from the small group that had detached itself from the Lion host. Kuwanan and Kachiko, both
watching from the security of Toshi Ranbo’s wall, had vigorously counseled against parley, fearing
treachery. Yojiro, though, had flatly dismissed their concerns.
“If Jigoku has already sewn so much distrust among us that we would put aside our ancient
customs because of suspicion, then it has already won a victory.”
Hotaru ducked from another cold gust of wind. Yojiro advanced a few paces.
“I am Bayushi Yojiro,” he called out, “appointed by the Emperor as custodian of Toshi
Ranbo on behalf of the Emerald Throne. What is your purpose here?”
A single, cloaked figure rode forward, stopping just short of Yojiro. But when the hood was
cast back, the rider’s dark eyes were leveled firmly on Hotaru.

935
 “I believe, Doji-sama, that you are standing very close to the place from which you slew my
betrothed,” said Matsu Tsuko.

936
15th Day of the Month of Hida, 1123, somewhere alongside the Drowned Merchant River

Falling snow blanketed the road east toward Toshi Ranbo, obscuring the path that lay before Ikoma
Tsanuri and leaving her directionless and uncertain. Somewhere across the river, to the north, a
hostile Unicorn Clan army was also weathering the heavy drifts. Somewhere ahead of her, to the
east, Champion Matsu Tsuko’s army was preparing for a siege of Toshi Ranbo. And behind her, the
respected Commander Kyōsuke had lost a critical village to the Unicorn and was captured in the
process. Her agent had failed to rescue the commander, but it was her army that had failed to reclaim
the village before the river froze over and the trees lost all vestiges of life.
The Battle of Four Roads had been closely fought, and Tsanuri and her soldiers were tired
and hungry. Their supplies had long run dry, with no indication from her superiors that more food
and equipment could be spared. She relied now on the villages they captured to sustain her troops.
Even the Castle of the Swift Sword could not feed her army through the winter, forcing them to live
off the snow-shrouded plains. It was unsustainable. Tsanuri could only hope that her champion
would have good news for her.
But Tsanuri had many reasons to doubt that she would see her troops fed and rested. The
scrolls she carried had barely left her side—or her thoughts—since the rōnin had first delivered them
to her. At first glance, she had found them to be little more than the routine records of the late
Commander Kyōsuke’s campaign: quartermasters’ reports, missives to and from nearby regional
lords, orders that had been relayed to him from the family daimyō through the clan’s chief
ambassador, and the like. Tsanuri kept similar records herself. But Kyōsuke’s army had not suffered

937
the same supply shortages that hers had—and Ambassador Ikoma Ujiaki’s messages openly
acknowledged it.
“Believe what people say, Little Viper, but remain vigilant. The hypocrisy of the deceitful
will reveal them, and you will know who can be trusted.” It was a lesson that she had taken to heart,
not only because it had come from her father. Why would the clan’s leadership supply the army at
Yōjin no Shiro and the army besieging Kyūden Kakita throughout both of their months-long
campaigns, yet allow Tsanuri’s soldiers to scavenge for supplies at every turn? If Ujiaki knew of
her shortages, did their family daimyō, Anakazu, also know? Had he agreed to it?
“General!” It was Matsu Beiona, one of Tsanuri’s more dangerous lieutenants. The rumble
of her approaching horse’s hooves was muffled in the drift of fresh snow that covered the road.
“Enemy scouts along the riverbank. Dosei believes they may have already spotted us.”
The frozen surface of the Drowned Merchant River paralleled the road. In the fog and snow,
Tsanuri could barely make out the shapes of horses and their riders. They stood still, seemingly
watching over the Lion retinue.
“Then we pick up the pace and hope they did not,” Tsanuri responded.
Beiona scowled. “You will not send a warrior to silence them? They will surely set an
ambush for our return or attack the troops while we are meeting with the champion.”
“They cannot while the snow continues. And neither can we overextend our own limited
forces.”
Beiona kicked her horse forward until they rode side by side. Her face, still painted white
for war, showed concern. “You cannot expect them to simply leave us be. I can do it, general. You
would not have to risk any of the other lieutenants. Say the word and I will strike them down before
they can return to their champion.”
“I will not.”
This was not the decision of a good commander, and she knew it. Any tactical information
gained by their enemy could be put to use against them, and their position on the road was
vulnerable. Akodo’s Leadership warned that commanders should hide weakness and project
strength in warfare. Were she trying to defeat the enemy army, Tsanuri would send Beiona to bring
down the enemy scouts without hesitation.
But the sack of Onon Mura lingered in her mind. She still sometimes dreamed about the
corpse-fires of peasants who had resisted her capture of their village—peasants whose slaughter she

938
had ordered, when it became necessary. Those peasants could no longer serve the Unicorn now, it
was true, but this was not their conflict. Had her army been properly supplied, perhaps it would not
have been necessary.
After months of fighting with the Unicorn over scraps of storehouses, Tsanuri could no
longer imagine the glory of victory. Dreams of a decisive win had given way to memories of dying
friends and hungry nights.
“You are not wrong to be wary of the enemy scouts, lieutenant,” Tsanuri said, “but we are
no threat to them, and with the snowfall they are no threat to us. I will not allow you to instigate a
retaliation with a pre-emptive attack.”
“You are putting too much trust in the enemy showing us mercy. If they attack while we are
separated from our army, those deaths will be on your head.”
“They already are!” It came out harsher than Tsanuri intended, and louder. For a moment,
the entire retinue paused at her outburst. “Thank you for your vigilance, lieutenant. But no one will
engage the enemy at this time.”
Beiona pulled the reins of her horse and rode to the back of the retinue with a scowl. Tsanuri
wiped her nose at the cold and realized her face was flushed. With a wave, she signaled that they
pick up the pace, and her lieutenants followed.
Across the river, the Unicorn scouts—who had been standing still and watchful
throughout—turned their horses and rode into the snowfall.

By the time Tsanuri and her lieutenants arrived at Matsu Tsuko’s war camp, the sun had fallen to
the horizon and exhaustion had settled upon them. The sight of makeshift palisades and Lion banners
elicited a half-hearted cheer from some of her samurai, but the best Tsanuri could manage was a
thin smile.
Ashigaru in cotton garb emerged from around their campfires, hurrying to retain what
warmth they could as they took the reins from Tsanuri’s followers. When one reached for Tsanuri’s
horse, the commander pulled the reins away. “I must see the champion at once. Where is she?”
“In the big tent with the Lady Kakita, most likely,” the ashigaru, a middle-aged woman still
dressed in her armor, replied with a gesture toward the center of the camp.
“Lady Kakita?” Tsanuri looked to the tent in question, as if it would somehow provide an
answer to her confusion. “Very well then, stable my horse while I speak with Matsu-ue.”

939
 “Yes ma’am.” The ashigaru took the horse as Tsanuri dismounted. She hurried toward the
command tent, her mind racing with yet more unanswered questions. Tsanuri couldn’t think of
anyone who would fit the description of Lady Kakita from nearby Toshi Ranbo. Perhaps the wife
of the Kakita daimyō had left his castle before its destruction, or the diplomat who had been staying
in Matsu Seishin’s court had been given leave to depart. But when the Crane Champion was
stationed in the city, why would either of them be negotiating with Tsuko on her behalf?
After one of the door guards reported Tsanuri’s arrival, the young general was admitted. The
biting cold that had been clawing its way through her clothes and boots yielded to a still heat from
the central hearth. Matsu Tsuko stood near it, a table haphazardly covered in papers and small
figurines beside her. Across from her, a tall, austere lady dressed in a fine blue-silver winter kimono
sat before a calligraphy set and pondered an incomplete composition.
“You have traveled through quite a harsh storm to meet with me, General Ikoma,” Tsuko
said in greeting. The Crane woman also acknowledged the young commander but said nothing.
Tsanuri bowed.
“It is of the utmost importance,” Tsanuri replied. She looked nervously at the Kakita. “I
apologize for interrupting. I did not know you had company.”
“The Lady Kakita Barahime has been my guest since our escape from her late castle, and
she shall continue to remain so until I have resolved my grievance with the Crane Champion over
the death of my betrothed, if that can still be managed.”
“Is that not why you have come to Toshi Ranbo?” Tsanuri asked.
“It was,” Tsuko admitted. Her voice was low, almost hesitant—wholly unlike the fervor that
Tsanuri had come to know from the older woman. “But the Crane—along with the forces of the
Scorpion and Phoenix—are preparing to march their armies south, and I do not think it wise to delay
them.”
Tsanuri’s confusion must have been clear on her face, as Barahime explained, “Lord Bayushi
Shoju has violently seized control of the Forbidden City with an army of Imperial Legionnaires and
loyal Scorpions. He now reportedly sits upon the Emerald Throne, having murdered the Emperor
and declared himself in league with the Shadowlands.”
Tsanuri was without words. The news of the Emperor’s death had been sad, but to think now
that it was a direct assault upon Heaven, and by the forces of Fu Leng himself…

940
 “But there is more,” Tsuko said. “Shoju’s armies—including the Imperial Legions—are
being led by Ambassador Ujiaki.”
She is quite capable of feeding her own soldiers, one way or another. Ujiaki’s words had
been meant only for Commander Kyōsuke, but Tsanuri doubted that she would ever forget them.
He had allowed her soldiers to starve, if not actively engineered it. And now he had betrayed the
Empire and sided with the Shadowlands by allying with an evil usurper. How could this be? And
yet…
“I… will admit that I have my own reasons to mistrust the ambassador,” Tsanuri admitted.
“It was one of the reasons I have come to meet with you. However, what I have brought is perhaps
best shared with you alone.”
Kakita Barahime smiled gently from where she sat by the hearth. “I do not wish to intrude
upon the tribulations of your clan. Allow me to step outside while you deliver your report.”
At that moment, Tsanuri’s stomach growled loudly, and her face flushed. Barahime stood,
adding, “I think it would be best if I got you a meal, as well.”
“Thank you, Lady Kakita,” Tsanuri offered Barahime a perfunctory bow as the noblewoman
put away her composition and made her way to the tent flap, where two guards escorted her out.
“I will admit, I am surprised to see her here, where your most confidential military strategy
is devised,” Tsanuri said once Barahime was gone. Tsuko shook her head.
“You are not the only one. Were she not as skilled with a blade as she is with a brush, perhaps
it would be safe to let her wait out the snow with Lord Isebō at Yōjin no Shiro. But I promised to
keep her under my protection, and she has more than proven herself as a traveling companion. And
for as long I must delay resolving our grievance with Kakita Yoshi and forestall vengeance against
Doji Hotaru…” A cloud fell over Tsuko’s face, and she looked down to the hearth. “I wish Arasou
were here. He always knew what needed to be done.”
After an uncomfortable pause, Tsanuri offered, “You are as capable a warrior as he was. I
have no doubt that you can lead us out of this schism and restore the Lion Clan’s good name.”
For the first time, Tsanuri saw pain in her champion’s eyes. Pain and grief, the suffering of
a woman to whom closure had been denied too many times. Though her kimono bore intricate
patterns of woven golden flowers, the firelight washed them into a single plain amber. She looked,
in that moment, less like the champion of a Great Clan and more like a woman huddling by the fire
in a cold darkness, lost and alone.

941
 Tsanuri produced the scroll case she had brought with her and offered it to Tsuko. She had
a report to deliver, and there were details Tsuko needed to hear. “My lord, I have come to you with
updates from the Unicorn warfront. Most recently, we failed to recapture Four Roads Village after
Commander Kyōsuke was overrun. While I was unable to rescue the commander, I was able to
recover his records so that they stayed out of the hands of the enemy. Some of them have given me
cause for concern, and I wish to share them with you.”
Matsu Tsuko took the scroll case and opened it, laying them out among the papers that
already covered the nearby table. As she scanned the scrolls’ contents, Tsanuri explained the
problems she had been facing: the loss of Commander Kyōsuke at Four Roads Village, their
precarious hold on certain captured Unicorn villages, her soldiers’ lack of supplies, and the cost of
that supply shortage upon her army’s ability to succeed. Tsuko’s brow furrowed as she listened to
Tsanuri’s report.
“The orders and messages sent to Commander Kyōsuke by Ambassador Ujiaki are of special
concern to me, as he clearly knew that my troops suffered from a lack of supplies—yet nothing was
ever done to secure our supply lines. All I heard from him, and from Ikoma Anakazu, was that we
were to press the offensive and rely on the land. It sounds now like you and your forces were fully
supplied. If that is true, then why was nothing sent to us?”
While she was still poring over the scrolls, a scowl unconsciously began to turn the corners
of Tsuko’s mouth. “Are you accusing Ambassador Ujiaki of betraying the Lion and attempting to
get you and your soldiers killed? Accusing Lord Anakazu—your own father—”
“We don’t think of each other like that.” Anymore. “General and lord. Nothing more.” The
mention of her father brought up fond memories that only hurt more for his absence. He had been
someone who always shared her excitement, from finding a quail in the grass when she was a child
to her rapid advancement within the Akodo War College. But she did not want to think of him now,
certainly not while she and Tsuko attempted to resolve the crisis that hung over their clan. The loss
of him was still too raw.
“I make no accusations, Matsu-ue,” Tsanuri responded shakily. “I merely wish to understand
why the leadership of the clan seemed to be abandoning me… again.”
“I knew nothing of the supply shortages you describe,” Tsuko answered. “Had I known, I
would have ordered a redistribution of the clan’s resources to better support your campaign. When

942
we assaulted Kakita Palace, my army fought at full strength, with the element of surprise. It is why
we were successful.”
It felt like the answer she had been expecting since she read Kyōsuke’s records. But Tsanuri
didn’t feel any more at ease for it. “Given that Ujiaki has manipulated events to drive my armies
toward further aggression toward the Unicorn, I cannot believe that this campaign is fully justified.
I… my soldiers and I will fight as long as we have to, but their lives should not be wasted fighting
a war that advances his ends, whatever they may be. It would be a debasement of not only my troops,
but also what the Lion Clan stands for.”
Tsuko turned her gaze on Tsanuri, her eyes now burning with renewed wrath. “What you
say is bold, general. But it is also correct. Whatever his faults, Toturi would not renounce his titles
for a lie. That means that our soldiers, and those of the Imperial Legion, now stand behind a usurper.
What you have shared with me only furthers that belief.” The champion stepped back from the table,
Ujiaki’s message to Kyōsuke still in her hand. “We cannot allow Ujiaki to destroy what our
ancestors have worked so hard to build with this clan.”
Tsuko began to pace. “Recall your soldiers from the Unicorn front and ready them to march
on the capital. I will do the same. The forces of the Lion must march unified behind one Champion,
even if that means Arasou’s justice will have to wait.”
“And as for the Unicorn?”
“Let them reclaim their own lands while the snow constricts them. Once we stand again with
a clear honor and purpose, perhaps we can settle the Shinjo’s insult for good and move past such
bloodshed as you have been forced to endure.”
The memory of the Unicorn scout lurked in the back of Tsanuri’s mind. If we leave this
territory to the Unicorn, our lands will surely be overrun while we defeat Ujiaki. I should have
ordered Beiona to strike them down before they could report our position.
But the certainty that Tsanuri had felt then was still present in her mind. Each time they
struck at Altansarnai’s forces, the Unicorn retaliated. If Tsuko and Tsanuri were to defeat Ujiaki and
unify the clan, as they both wished, they could not do it with Shinjo Altansarnai still poised to attack.
“With respect, Matsu-ue, I do not think they will regroup in their own lands. If we leave Shinjo
Altansarnai an undefended border, she will take it as an opportunity to invade. That is how they do
war.”
“What would you do to secure that border?” Tsuko asked.

943
 “If we negotiate with them, their champion will listen,” Tsanuri replied. She feared Tsuko
would be loath to ally with their enemies, but Ikoma lands lay close to Unicorn territories, and
Tsanuri knew much of the Unicorn champion’s reputation. “They are only in this fight because we
have continued to engage them in combat and make demands that they did not agree to. I believe
that if we allied with them, Shinjo Altansarnai would not only retreat from the border, but perhaps
even join us in the fight against Ujiaki.”
“That is a bold presumption.”
“I know. But I believe Ambassador Ujiaki is behind much of this conflict. If we present this
to the Unicorn champion, she will listen.”
As she stalked to the door of the tent, her hand still gripping Ujiaki’s scroll, Tsuko fell silent.
Lost in thought, she wandered to the hearth and looked down into the coals. This time, the light that
fell upon her kimono turned her flowing brown hair into a golden shawl about her shoulders.
Tsanuri spoke again. “This conflict has seen too many samurai on both sides dead. If we
give them the opportunity, the Unicorn will do the right thing.”
Matsu Tsuko considered the coals for a moment longer, then looked to Tsanuri. Gone now
was the doubt and pain that had plagued her before, replaced with a resolute fury. “Very well. I wish
to see our clan made whole once again, and if that means we must negotiate with our enemies, then
that is what we will do. Tomorrow, we prepare. We will put your theory to the test, or we will fight.”

944
17th Day of the Month of Hida, 1123, alongside the Drowned Merchant River

As Ikoma Tsanuri approached the enemy war camp, she saw that the peacefulness of the fluttering
purple banners was not shared by the samurai who stood below them.
Even after months of brutal fighting between the Lion and the Unicorn, the young general
could still remember the names of the soldiers she had lost. But if Matsu Tsuko could convince
Shinjo Altansarnai to find common cause with the Lion against the treasonous regent, they could
achieve peace, or at least a truce. Respite for herself and her soldiers was so close, she could nearly
grasp it.
Yet as Tsuko and her tiny retinue drew near the Unicorn tents, they were vastly outnumbered
by the warriors guarding the yurts, let alone the soldiers amassed within. Shinjo, Utaku, and Moto
samurai sat astride their horses with their bows strung, while infantry stood with spears held at
attention or with scimitars at the ready. Such an array of force might not have been assembled if
Shinjo Altansarnai were sympathetic to their requests—or if she hadn’t been alerted to their coming.
Allowing that scout to return to Altansarnai without confrontation had likely given away the
position of the Lion armies’ leadership. While it had not resulted in an ambush, as one of Tsanuri’s
lieutenants had feared, it had provided the Unicorn with ample time to prepare for their arrival.
Perhaps the Unicorn had even prepared a holding chamber for prisoners, as they had at Four Roads
Village.
Tsanuri hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

945
 She clenched her fists at her sides. After convincing Tsuko that this diplomacy was
necessary, Tsanuri still wanted to believe that Altansarnai would be open to negotiations. Yet she
couldn’t hold the Unicorn Champion’s mistrust against her.
After all, were it not for the marriage treaty that had instigated this entire conflict, Tsanuri
would still have a father.
Even the daimyō of the Ikoma could hardly agree to marry the Unicorn Clan Champion
when he already had a wife and daughter. But neither could he disobey his lord when Champion
Akodo Arasou ordered Ikoma Anakazu to forswear his family so that he could fulfill the conditions
of the marriage arrangement that had been agreed upon by both champions. She’d kept the painful
memories of his departure pushed to the back of her mind, but given the context of the negotiations,
it was hard not to think about them now.
The Lion approached the camp, and three Unicorn samurai rode out to meet them. Leading
them was Shinjo Haruko, daughter of the champion, wearing a stern but weary expression that
Tsanuri hoped was not a prelude to what lay before them. Perhaps Haruko’s exhaustion came from
the same place as her own: months of battle without end in sight.
“Matsu Tsuko of the Lion, I have been instructed to escort you and your samurai to my
Altansarnai Khan.”
“Then I will follow your lead,” was Tsuko’s only reply. The Unicorn samurai fell into ranks
around the Lion retinue as they entered the war camp—it was an armed escort, but so far, no weapon
had left its sheath.
As they rode, Tsanuri noticed how close she and Haruko were in age. In fact, had Altansarnai
not refused the marriage arrangement at the final hour, Haruko would have become the daughter of
Ikoma Anakazu. Like Tsanuri, Haruko was a talented young warrior and an heir to a powerful lord.
She had most likely also commanded Unicorn soldiers in the ongoing conflict between their clans,
just as Tsanuri had. But to think of her as a replacement for Tsanuri… for a moment, she imagined
facing Haruko directly on a battlefield, resolving her jealousy with steel.
We’re not here to fight, Tsanuri reminded herself. She was here to assist Matsu Tsuko in
negotiating for peace—or better yet, an alliance to employ against Ujiaki. She tamped down on her
anger and focused on keeping her composure. Such emotions would do her no good in the enemy’s
court, and she had always prided herself on her level-headedness.

946
 The Unicorn Champion’s command tent was a wide yurt decorated with colorful purple
designs on heavy felt that flew the crest of the Unicorn Clan proudly from either side of its entrance.
The inside was equally ornate, with beautiful wooden chests and fearsome suits of armor lining the
walls; carven posts flowed with sculpted horses. At the center of the tent, smoldering coals drove
back the cold.
Staring down at them from a raised seat at the other end of the space was Shinjo Altansarnai,
her purple robes fluttering with colorful petals and her greying hair bound tightly behind her head
in a warrior’s braid. Beside her stood a proud, bearded man with olive skin, his hands within his
sleeves, and a much younger Crane Clan courtier who sat on a pillow—Doji Shizue, if the cane that
lay beside her was any indication. The man had to be Iuchi Daiyu, the Unicorn Champion’s
paramour, spiritual adviser, and the father of her children. Shinjo Haruko took up her position at her
mother’s side and knelt in front of Daiyu.
Matsu Tsuko relinquished her swords to the Unicorn guards as they entered, but Tsanuri was
permitted to keep hers as Tsuko’s bodyguard for the negotiations. Based on the half-dozen samurai
who followed the Lion inside, however, it was clear that the Unicorn would not permit any harm to
come to their champion.
“I will admit, I was surprised to learn that you were here,” Shinjo Altansarnai said as Matsu
Tsuko approached and took a seat on the hard ground before the Unicorn Champion. “And even
more so when my scouts informed me that you intended diplomacy, Matsu-dono.”
They had not sent word of their intentions ahead, but such a small group of high-ranking
individuals openly bound for the Unicorn war camp would have been easily understood.
“I did not at first intend to meet with you, Champion Shinjo,” Tsuko admitted. “But our
conflict has been long and bloody these past seasons, and recent news has forced me to re-evaluate
the needs of my clan. Rokugan faces a dire threat, one which affects even the far-ranging Unicorn.”
“I know of the fires that burn in Otosan Uchi,” Altansarnai replied. “And I also know that
the Champion of the Lion now goes where the waves will him.”
“Akodo Toturi served well as the Emerald Champion,” Tsuko declared, “but it was his
brother who led the Lion. Now I come to you as Arasou’s heir, and as Champion of the Lion.”
“Hmph,” Altansarnai answered. The possibility that Altansarnai might be biased against
Tsuko for her close relationship with Arasou was not one Tsanuri wanted to contemplate. “So, what
does the Champion of the Lion wish from me this time?”

947
 “If you know of the situation in the capital, then you also know that Ikoma Ujiaki commands
the Imperial Legions at the behest of the treasonous Shoju.” Tsuko spat. “The Lion will not abide
treason against the throne, and so I intend to rescue our troops serving among the legions from the
wicked influence of our former ambassador.
“Last spring, a disagreement regarding a betrothal led to seeds of conflict being sown across
our lands. When summer came, those conflicts grew. You proved yourself an honest opponent—I
have the greatest respect for your clan and your samurai’s skill in warfare.
“But it is now winter, and we have naught to reap but continued bloodshed while the
Emperor’s murderer deigns to sit upon the Emerald Throne. I ask if it is still a season for battle
between our clans, now that Ujiaki is an enemy to us both—and Shoju threatens us all.”
At this, Altansarnai tilted her head. Daiyu’s eyes widened in suspicion or surprise. If they
sensed weakness in the Lion, would the Unicorn respect it, or exploit it? Tsanuri had been so certain
that they would listen, but…
“Have you come to sue for peace, Lady Matsu?” Altansarnai asked.
“I have come to offer a respite only,” Tsuko said. “It is in neither of our clans’ interests to
continue fighting while the snow makes such endeavors difficult. And once we have meted out
justice to the criminals in Otosan Uchi, perhaps we can find a diplomatic solution to our
differences—one that is more acceptable to both our clans than our last attempt. To continue fighting
now would only tax our samurai unduly.”
The Unicorn Champion’s face grew hard. “Perhaps your samurai are taxed unduly, yet it
seems we remember this autumn quite differently. Was it not your servants who drew blades against
us, demanding that we relinquish our holdings lest you take them by force? It will take years, perhaps
generations, to repair the devastation wrought by Lion armies upon my land and its people.”
She was not looking at Tsanuri, yet the young commander felt the sweat collect on her brow.
The hunger of her troops, the slaughter of the peasants at Onon Mura… the suffering was still too
close to her mind. She wished she did not agree with Altansarnai.
“Your people are not the only ones who have suffered devastation,” Tsuko snapped. “Or did
you think we had forgotten the raids and depredations of Utaku Kamoko? But if the usurper is not
brought down, he will spread yet more ruin. We cannot tolerate the blasphemy he has committed. I
am not asking for your forgiveness or your surrender, only for you to unite with the Lion against a
treasonous regent and a treacherous ambassador.”

948
 “Do not think I have forgotten the last time a Lion Clan Champion wished to find unity with
me and my clan.” Altansarnai loomed like a wolf upon her dais. “And Toturi’s offer was even less
compelling than Arasou’s.”
“As much as I loved Arasou, I am not him, nor am I his brother,” Tsuko replied. “I am not
here to offer an arrangement concocted by advisers. I come as one champion to another, to beseech
you to turn your attention to the Empire we both serve.”
The expressions of Altansarnai’s councilors remained set against Tsuko’s request. Only the
gentle Shizue seemed receptive to Tsuko’s proposal.
The sweat now ran down the back of Tsanuri’s neck, and she glanced around at the Unicorn
samurai watching from the edges of the tent. None of them seemed ready to fight, but even allowing
the Lion to return safely could still result in more bloodshed. If Altansarnai rejected Tsuko’s appeal,
the northern lands of the Lion Clan would be wholly unprotected when they marched upon Otosan
Uchi. Altansarnai needed to understand, to agree to a reprieve, for the subjects of the Lion to remain
safe.
“You may not be Lord Arasou or Toturi, but do not think me blind, Lady Matsu. You call
yourself Champion of the Lion, yet what proclamation makes it so? Have you conferred with your
daimyō and selected a replacement after Toturi’s departure, or have you simply chosen the position
for yourself? Will you use me to dethrone your so-called traitorous ambassador, only to strike at me
when our forces are weak, as when you led your generals against Kakita Palace while your champion
was unable to stop you? I wonder why you profess such hatred for Ikoma Ujiaki: because he
threatens the Empire, or because he threatens your control of your clan? Your word is no better than
that of the Ikoma lord who sought to marry me.”
With those words, Altansarnai might as well have just spit in Tsuko's face.
This negotiation had been something Tsanuri had advocated for, something she had
convinced Tsuko to attempt. If it failed, and the future of the Lion was ruined because of it, such a
catastrophe would be on Tsanuri’s head. She could not let the prospect of a truce slip through her
grasp now.
“Lord Anakazu did not seek to deceive you! And neither does Lady Matsu!” Tsanuri found
herself shouting before she had even thought to speak at all. Blood rushed to her face as the entire
assembly turned to her. What am I doing?
Silence fell across the room.

949
 I should have let Tsuko speak for herself. I have no real authority here.
But the betrayal that she felt from her own clan’s leadership still stung in her heart. She could
sit by and allow Altansarnai to impugn Lord Arasou as much as she wanted—and if she took issue
with Ujiaki, Tsanuri would happily join in. But such a brazen insult to her father, even to his
memory, was beyond what Tsanuri could stand. Not now, not when so much of the suffering this
marriage treaty had brought upon them both could be laid at the feet of one manipulative
ambassador.
If I’m going to make a scene, I cannot let it be in vain.
She continued. “Lady Matsu’s attack upon Kakita Palace was in fulfillment of the blood feud
between their families, and she captured it justly. Even as the enemy demolished the stronghold to
drive her forces out of it, she took it upon herself to safeguard the lady of the palace, to whom she
had given her vow of protection. I know of no one else who would risk their own life to defend an
enemy lord while escaping a castle that was being destroyed around them. Do you?”
“Do you always allow your yōjimbō to interrupt proceedings like this?” Iuchi Daiyu asked
wryly.
“Ikoma Tsanuri is one of our most trusted generals, and she has personally advised me on
this matter.” When she looked to Tsanuri, Matsu Tsuko’s expression hardened. “She speaks the
truth about my escape from the destruction at Kakita Palace.”
Doji Shizue spoke up. “I did not know we had the honor of speaking with the daughter of
the Ikoma daimyō.”
“Not anymore,” Tsanuri corrected her. The Ikoma are the face of the Lion, her father had
once told her. Indeed, she had seen him and his emissaries speak their minds in foreign courts. It is
our duty to ensure that our clan’s achievements are known and its passion unquestioned.
Yet she had never thought of herself as an Ikoma—she was too reserved for the normal
stereotype of her father’s family, and she had found the Akodo War College much more comfortable
than her father’s court or her mother’s libraries. Yet here she was. And she surprised herself with
how much she had to say. “You may have spared my mother’s life, Champion Shinjo, but I lost my
father the day he was ordered to marry you. You and your children are not the only ones to have
suffered from your arrangement with Lord Ikoma.”

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 Shizue’s fan, which had been resting comfortably in her lap, shot up to cover her expression.
Tsuko’s eyes widened in surprise, and her lips curled in the hint of a smile. Haruko gasped audibly,
and Daiyu furrowed his brow. Altansarnai frowned, breaking her stony resolve for the first time.
“My Lady Tsuko comes to you with a request for aid against Ujiaki the Schemer, and she
does not ask alone. For too long have I watched my soldiers die to your swords, by his
manipulations. What damage he has wrought must be stopped and undone. The command given to
Lord Anakazu may have been Arasou’s, but it came with Ujiaki’s seal. If you are unwilling to join
us and strike down the traitor, then the mercy and kindness you showed my mother was clearly a
lie.”
Once again, silence fell upon the assembly, but this time with less severity. The quiet
murmurings of a couple samurai at the edges of the tent hung in the air. Tsanuri met Altansarnai’s
gaze. As the two judged each other, the uncertainty that had been plaguing Tsanuri since reading
Commander Kyōsuke’s records finally fell away. If the Unicorn Champion refused them now, it
was on her head—not Tsanuri’s. Tsanuri had shared the pain she carried and challenged Altansarnai
to respect it.
Haruko looked up to her mother with a questioning look, prompting Altansarnai to speak. “I
am sorry you have unwillingly paid this cost, Ikoma-sama. When I withdrew from the arrangement
to marry your father, I wished to see your mother's life spared. She helped me see that the treaty
would benefit neither of our peoples. I never sought war between us, but I could not ignore the
violence that greeted my decision.
“Perhaps the justice that arrangement lacked can be found now, without further bloodshed
between us. If Lady Matsu is true to her word,” Altansarnai gave Tsuko a meaningful look, “and
wishes only to find a new path forward for our clans, then I will stand down my troops so that we
may find a less bloody resolution of this conflict.
“And if what you say is true—that Ujiaki has betrayed both our clans by devising the strife
that has unfolded between us—then I would be glad to aid in his defeat. Let us strike down the
usurper and then discuss what each of us can offer the other in restitution for the damage that we
have inflicted. Ikoma-sama, at least, deserves to be returned to her family and station.”
Matsu Tsuko lowered her head in agreement. “You will find your trust is not misplaced. I
will share what strategies we have devised to march on Otosan Uchi,in case they can be improved

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with your forces. And when it is over,” Tsuko glanced up at Tsanuri, “we can see about restoring
what this past year has taken from each of us.”
Tsanuri bowed low to both champions. Before raising her head and returning to her seat, the
young general swallowed the tears that threatened to emerge. Despite Altansarnai’s mistrust, she
would join the Lion in their attack against Ujiaki and Shoju. It would keep Tsanuri’s soldiers safe
from an ambush, and it would strengthen their assault upon the capital.
And, perhaps, when it was all over, she could have a father once again.

952
18th Day of the Month of Hida, 1123, outside of Toshi Ranbo

Sunrise cut through grey morning clouds, coloring the snowy fields a brilliant crimson. As the
morning ripened, Lady Sun cast the lines of Crane, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, and Unicorn samurai
riding together in a blood-red silhouette before the dour clouds blanketed the scene in an
otherworldly chill. At the head of a long line of cavalry, Shinjo Altansarnai’s face was drawn in
stony resolve. Faint lines traced her features, hinting at years of worry and care. Next to her rode
Ikoma Tsanuri. The delicately molded barding on Tsanuri’s steed were traced with frost patterns;
how cold the poor mare—and its rider—seemed to be without the warm woolen wrappings of
Unicorn riders.
Altansarnai’s mind was foggy from lack of sleep. The night prior had been mayhem as two
previously warring clans struggled to realign themselves to fight side by side. And even in the brief
hours the Unicorn Champion had taken to sleep, the revelation of Ikoma Ujiaki’s subterfuge—the
impossible marriage, and the endless, fruitless feud between Lion and Unicorn—had eaten away
any rest or repose. The blood price of Ambassador Ikoma’s conspiracy was beyond reckoning.
Tsanuri shivered, almost imperceptibly, as a cutting breeze tore across the wintry field.
Altansarnai’s heart tightened at the thought of Tsanuri’s mother and her failed suicide attempt, the
mock marriage arrangement; the entire bloody feud had been orchestrated by Ambassador Ikoma.
There would be time to mend and heal later, but not until Ujiaki paid for his perfidy.
Perhaps she could at least take Tsanuri’s mind off the intense cold. Altansarnai’s breath
manifested as a cloud as she broke the silence.

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 “I met an Ujik sage once. Living in a barren hovel out on the steppe, on the brink of
starvation. Surrounded by animal furs and filth. The old man was thinner than parchment, but he
invited me in, poured me a cup of watery broth, and told me he was the wealthiest man in the world.”
Tsanuri turned slightly, curious.
“‘What, pray tell, is your wealth?’ I asked him. He drained his broth and said, ‘Each day,
Lady Sun shows me the animal I will eat, and the wind bears my arrows true. Every night, even in
deep midwinter, I feast.’
“I drank one bowl of his broth, and he pointed to the mountains lit by the sunrise. ‘Lady Sun
gives me gold,’ he said. A flock of birds nested on his roof, and he addressed them as his servants.
“It was then that I began to feel the effects of the broth he gave me.” Altansarnai’s expression
broke into wry smile. Tsanuri chuckled.
“For all intents and purposes, I did enjoy a feast in the company of the lord of his home, with
all his subjects in attendance. And although the winter was even more bitter than this one, the
mountains were bathed in gold.” Altansarnai took a breath. Her warmth spilled out in a cloud,
dancing like kami taking a thousand forms. “I suppose that a thing is as much how it is perceived as
it is itself.”
Ikoma Tsanuri’s lips pursed. For a moment, Altansarnai saw something familiar in the
general’s affect: like Haruko, she was a devoted daughter, sincere and noble, a successor to one of
the great families of Rokugan. The young Lion’s keen eyes darted to and fro, searching for any
threat ahead. The crunch of hooves in the thick, feathery snow filled the silence that stretched
between them. Altansarnai reflected on the Lion general’s blithe confessions several days prior, then
chose to respond in kind.
“The fields of Rokugan will always be stained with the blood of our people,” said the
Unicorn. “I did what I had to for the Unicorn, as you have done for the Lion—"
“All that we did was in service to Ujiaki’s plans,” Tsanuri broke in. Her expression twisted
in a look of pain as she guided her steed over a rocky outcropping, cresting a low hill that overlooked
miles of empty snow. The clouds hung like a pall over the bleak landscape.
“We have no need to mix the blood of the Unicorn and Lion in marriage; the blood of our
clans has mixed in the soil beneath our feet,” Tsanuri continued. “Duty has brought us death,
Champion Shinjo. What we need now is justice.”

954
 “Upon that, we are agreed,” Altansarnai’s tone was cold as ice. Her hands gripped the reins
of her horse tightly. “Ikoma Ujiaki will pay a thousand times over for the misery he has wrought.”
When she looked into the general’s eyes again, she saw Tsanuri’s clear-eyed resolve. The
Lion brushed a tear from her cheek and smiled at Altansarnai, who returned it in kind. Perhaps this
was the kinship their families had always been fated to share, allied against a common foe.
The pair looked back to the cadre of samurai arrayed behind them. A Lion commander had
pulled his mempō down to break into uproarious laughter, and was joined by several of his
subordinates. Their mirth was broken by a shout as Utaku Kamoko rode up alongside the laughing
man, her eyes hot with anger.
“You have the gall to show yourself in the company of the Unicorn?” Kamoko seethed. It
was then that Altansarnai recognized the Lion commander: Matsu Agetoki, the man who had
pillaged Kamoko’s home. The battle maiden’s hand rested on her sword’s pommel as she fought
her rage. Altansarnai clenched her jaw as she prepared to intervene.
“Stand down, General Utaku,” came a clear, strong voice. A samurai bedecked in brilliant
blue livery rode confidently through the lines of cavalry to come between the Lion and the Unicorn.
Removing his helmet, Doji Kuwanan cut between the two, his cool brown eyes the only source of
calm amidst the storm of emotion. “If you wish to settle your grievances with this man, you may do
so in the appropriate time and place. But this is not that time nor is it the place.” The Crane noble
nodded to Tsanuri and Altansarnai.
The Unicorn Champion looked to the Lion and Crane champions, and all the heroes behind
them, who would ride into battle with her. Doji Hotaru gazed confidently at the head of a line of
Crane elite soldiers, full of cool resolve. Altansarnai’s own children, Yasamura and Haruko, met
her gaze, unflinching. In that moment, she felt herself the mother of all these young hopefuls, once
set against each other by the acrimony of old wounds.
“Old wounds do not bleed,” Altansarnai shouted to their small army. “Though they may ache
for generations. Today, let us set aside the past to strike at our true foe.”
The truth had broken like the sun through the clouds of war. Their true adversary was ahead,
in Otosan Uchi. Ikoma Ujiaki would pay for his cruel machinations, as would Bayushi Shoju for his
corruption. She saw the eyes of her riders alight.
“We ride for Rokugan!”

955
5th Day of the Month of Togashi, 1123, alongside the River of the Sun

As the army crossed a small, frozen river to the snowy fields outside Otosan Uchi, a cadre of
mounted samurai came into view. The Army of the Rising Wave was arrayed in a narrow crescent
outside the imposing profile of the Imperial City. A serpentine tendril of smoke rose over the sloped
roofs and faded glory of the pagodas; something inside the city was burning, but what? The Miwaku
Kabe—the Enchanted Wall—girding the innermost city seemed to ripple and shimmer like a mirage.
As the small army approached, a messenger rode out on horseback to meet them, bearing the sigil
of the Dragon clan. After a brief parley, Altansarnai, Tsanuri, and Matsu Tsuko rode out over the
frozen plain to meet Mirumoto Hitomi in the Dragon army’s camp.
The Dragon general’s face was a grim mask as she appraised them each, in turn, in the cool
interior of her tent.
“Your arrival is most fortunate,” Hitomi spoke in a low growl. “I am relieved to see that only
a portion of the Lion sided with Shoju, and that the Unicorn have brought their muster.”
This was only part of her clan’s muster, but Altansarnai did not need to correct the Dragon.
“Our purpose is far more dire than it first seemed. Bayushi Shoju promised to unleash the
horrors beyond the Carpenter Wall, and has somehow delivered on his promise. We have received
word from the Crab that Hida Kisada has fallen, and Akuma no Oni’s horde marches across their
provinces with the discipline of a well-trained army.”
The words hung like a stench in the air. Altansarnai looked to her companions and saw dread
written upon their faces. Her own stomach ached, as though a snake had coiled in her belly. Hitomi
exhaled, then went on.
“Shoju must be defeated at all costs, otherwise he shall surely add his forces to the armies
of the Shadowlands.”
“We understand,” Matsu Tsuko intoned. The rest of them nodded as she continued. “Bayushi
Shoju poses a grave threat to the Emerald Empire. For the good of Rokugan, we will slay his
Legionnaires before they can debase themselves further.”
“The task is dire,” Hitomi responded. “As long as the wall’s enchantments hold strong, there
is not an army under the sun that could possibly breach the city.”
“We should starve them out,” Altansarnai said coldly. “We can order ships to blockade their
port of entry. They will have no choice but to meet us on the open field.”

956
 The suggestion of a smile tugged at Hitomi’s angular features. “Chancellor Kakita Yoshi
has already sent word to the Crane and Phoenix navies. And a gentle suggestion has been sent to the
Tortoise to patrol the outer waters for opportunists who might slip through.”
Altansarnai’s eyes strayed to a large table in the center of the tent, where symbols for the
enemy and friendly forces were arranged in a crescent around the stronghold. At the edge of the
board, the golden and violet pieces of the Unicorn and Lion armies were piled; the Dragon had not
known if they were friend or foe.
“We greatly outnumber them. If we can overwhelm the ambassador’s forces and breach the
Enchanted Wall, perhaps we may stop Shoju himself,” said Tsuko.
Altansarnai clenched her hands into fists. Ujiaki had not simply betrayed clan and code for
the regent’s power: he had sided against Rokugan itself, allied himself with a man who served the
Shadowlands. The Unicorn Champion strode to the war room table and stared intently at the figure
bearing Ujiaki’s name, standing blithely before a carved facsimile of the wall. The very soul of
Rokugan was in the balance.
“The Miwaku Kabe was built to keep the Forbidden City safe. Legends tell of a mysterious
and grave calamity that befalls any who would besiege the city.” Tsuko stood next to Altansarnai
and placed one finger upon the pointed top of Otosan Uchi.
The nameless menace of the wall fixed itself in Altansarnai’s mind. She thought of her own
children, and of their future in this fractured empire. If she died, would they have the strength to
carry on in her stead? And if they lost this battle, would the Emerald Empire continue to exist?
Would any of her clan ride free under the eye-blue sky ever again?
“The Unicorn have traveled far and wide,” the Unicorn Champion said. “We do not fear the
unknown; we try to understand it. And so, we forge our own path. It is our differences that make us
strong. Much as the Lion draw strength from their virtue, and the Dragon their wisdom.” She looked
to Hitomi, who smiled openly for the first time.
“If we stand united, we shall not fail.”

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12th Day of the Month of Togashi, 1123, Otosan Uchi

A week had passed. The monolithic wall towered over the outer districts, shimmering and rippling
as the armies of the Great Clans assembled like a noose around Ikoma’s neck. The curl of smoke
they had seen rising over the capital city had not stopped burning.
Altansarnai’s heart swelled as she surveyed their army: the regal Shiba Katsuda, resplendent
in the finery of the Phoenix; the ethereal Doji Hotaru and her brother Kuwanan, blades gleaming in
the noonday sun; the former Master of Earth once known as Isawa Rujo, now stripped of sign or
sigil; and Bayushi Yojiro at the head of the faceless muster of the Scorpion clan; where Hitomi
should have been, Mirumoto Raitsugu stood proudly before the monks and warriors of the Army of
the Rising Wave, who were poised and ready like the force of water behind a dam, waiting to break.
“All has gone according to plan. Perhaps too easily,” said Tsuko as she brought her horse
alongside Altansarnai and Tsanuri.
“Do you suspect a trap?”
“I expect one,” Tsuko replied. “Ujiaki seems almost to beg for defeat. With our forces
combined, we outnumber the Imperial Army ten to one, yet Bayushi Yojiro’s scouts reported he
ordered all forces outside the Enchanted Wall.”
“It is more than folly—it is suicide.” Tsanuri’s amber eyes seemed to glow gold in the
morning light. The sun had crested the low cloud cover, glinting off the Lion’s tawny armor.
“He has chosen a good day to die,” said Altansarnai.
To her left, Yasamura and Haruko sat astride their own steeds, faces drawn. In a single
moment, Altansarnai remembered holding Haruko for the first time, how her tiny fist closed around
her thumb, her eyes shut. And then Yasamura, crying in the mud after scraping his knee. Cold nights
curled up together for warmth. She wished she could dwell in each moment, gather her children to
herself again, keep them safe in memory.
Haruko had grown tall and fierce, and would die honorably someday, serving her clan.
Yasamura was sharp and angular, and like his mother, would also die for his clan if need be.
There was still hope. Her youngest son, Shono, would take what he had learned far across
the Burning Sands to lead in her stead, should she fall in battle. And, barring his return, Altansarnai
allowed herself to hope that Iuchi Shahai might be quietly allowed to return, for Daiyu’s sake. One
fine sunny day, perhaps, they would all be reunited.

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 Altansarnai turned to those of her children who were with her now. “Fight bravely. Carve
your own path. No matter the outcome, I will always be with you.”
Her son wiped a tear from his face. Her daughter gave a grim smile. Their forces stood at
the western edge of Otosan Uchi, where across the field, Imperial forces had mustered. A cold wintry
wind blew from the north, carrying the menace of snow and ice. There was nothing more to say.
Altansarnai looked to her companions, then flashed her war fan for the signal. Overhead, a black-
winged crow circled and let out a mordant caw. At that same moment, Tsanuri let out a loud bellow.
“Charge!”
A flurry of movement. The weight of a hundred horses trampled fresh-fallen snow. All
silence and anticipation ceased, became the present. Across the battlefield, a unit of swift cavalry
charged through a wall of foot soldiers, darting across the field in a blur of green and gold.
Before their forces were within striking distance, a wave of enemy arrows blackened the
sky. A whorl of current rushed around their ears as Phoenix shugenja entreated the kami, who swept
the arrows aside as if by calligraphy brush. Arrows clattered noisily on helmets and armor, harmless.
And then, at the vanguard, the cavalry clashed. Altansarnai watched her vassals pass her, holding
their curved blades out to mete death upon the Imperial Legions. Moto warriors let out a long,
ululating Ujik battle cry, while the Utaku Battle Maidens rode forth in fearsome silence.
Holding up an eyeglass, Altansarnai watched lines of Imperial foot soldiers march steadily
out from the capital. In the midst of them, perched upon a tawny steed, was General Ikoma Ujiaki.
In his hand, he held a metal fan that glinted dully in the watery light.
“The scouts spoke true. The ambassador is situated at the heart of his army, directing their
movements,” Altansarnai barked at Tsuko. To the north, Lion cavalry clashed with Imperial
ashigaru, supported on either side by the tattooed monks of the Army of the Rising Wave, their arms
and bare chests glowing with luminous energy. Another volley of arrows launched and were batted
aside by friendly shugenja. Several of the Lion cavalry were struck, their riders tossed from their
saddles, by a half dozen Legionnaires wielding heavy iron tetsubо̄. The thick iron clubs dipped in
and out of the waves of soldiers like paddles in a river, sending warriors flying in their wake.
“Press on!” Altansarnai shouted into the din. She urged her horse into the fray, then leapt
from the saddle in front of one of the bushi, whose tetsubо̄ was embedded in the back of a fallen
Dragon warrior. In a swift slash, Altansarnai felled him, then cleaved the helmet of another warrior
in two. A backward swing from another tetsubо̄ knocked her breath out, and she tumbled back into

959
the mix of mud and snow as a warrior approached, their mempо̄ painted with a rictus grin. The bushi
brandished their tetsubо̄ over their head to mete out death.
“Champion Shinjo! To me!” came a voice. Unthinking, Altansarnai rolled in the direction
of the sound. A slash, then a gurgling cry. She looked up to see Doji Kuwanan wipe his blade clean.
Suddenly, the skin on her neck prickled. Beyond the Imperial Army, the west side of the
Enchanted Wall shimmered, and the very ground seemed to groan as if under a terrible weight. A
sudden sound of voices—barely perceptible, but growing stronger—rose like the sound of the
whispering tide as an oily, black mass pooled on the face of the Miwaku Kabe. The sound of voices
grew silent, overtaken by a mordant wail. Altansarnai felt the skin on her neck prickle with fear as
the dark shape grew heavy and tumbled down to envelop the outer city and surrounding battlefield.
As the darkness overtook knots of skirmishing cavalry and bushi, blue lights danced in the murk.
The wind was sucked from Altansarnai’s mouth, as if the wall itself had drawn a sharp
breath. All around her, shouts of consternation turned to screams as phantom forms emerged from
the ground: clawed, spindly arms digging out of the muck, followed by ghastly, hollow faces. Out
of the earth between her and Doji Kuwanan, a three-eyed monstrosity with a broad forehead and
clacking jaws erupted from beneath a pile of snow, wreathed in an iridescent blue film. Altansarnai
felt her blood run cold; Ujiaki had bent the kami of the wall to his will. The blue lights dancing in
the distance were an army of undead servants: ultimate proof of Shoju’s alliance with the
Shadowlands.
All became chaos. A stone’s throw away, Ikoma Tsanuri and Matsu Tsuko plunged into the
tumult as undead servants beset their forces with tooth and claw, devouring the fallen with reckless
abandon. Samurai locked in combat were blindsided by ancient, crude weapons wielded by
phantoms with misshapen heads and sightless eyes. In a moment of panic, Altansarnai scanned the
battlefield for her children, but could not see them.
Next to her, the heir to the Crane Clan drew a sharp breath. “We must be brave.” Doji
Kuwanan flashed a smile.
Nearby, Kakita Toshimoko launched himself, faster than the wind, at a line of advancing
soldiers. The duelist’s blade moved so quickly it was almost invisible.
The pair waded through the tempest as another volley of arrows flew out from the Imperial
forces. This time, the combined army had no shugenja nearby to bat them aside. Kuwanan and

960
Altansarnai both dove for cover behind a fallen horse, its former rider slack-jawed in a look of dead
shock. Altansarnai searched every fallen Unicorn, every empty face, for her children’s likeness.
An inhuman roar resounded through the pall of battle. The pair advanced to see Matsu Tsuko
struggling valiantly against a hulking oni that flickered with blue light. The oni was tall, perhaps the
height of three warriors, with a long, furred body and an equine face rotted through to expose a
ghastly white skull underneath. It champed its teeth, then snapped at the Lion commander.
Altansarnai’s pulse stopped. Just then, the light of Lady Sun caught a familiar metallic glimmer in
the corner of her eye: General Ujiaki was not far to the south, twirling a metal fan. The Unicorn
Champion felt her heart pulled in two directions as she watched Tsuko struggle against the oni. The
weight of their task bore down upon her.
“We must reach Ujiaki at all costs,” Altansarnai commanded.
Kuwanan nodded, but there was a silent conflict written in his deep brown eyes.
“Go to him. I have something I must do.”
The moment was fleeting; there was no time for hesitation. Altansarnai bade the Crane
farewell, then headed south.
Unleashing a hoarse whinny, the massive oni reared back and stamped at Tsuko, who deftly
feinted, losing her magnificently plumed helmet in the process. The weight of the oni’s hoof crushed
the helmet as it bore down on the Lion commander. The phantom charged again at the warrior, who
sluggishly dove for cover.
Doji Kuwanan drew his blade, then charged for the oni. The swordsman’s form was as fierce
as a Lion’s as he struck a dire cut to the phantom’s right flank. Instead of blood, inky darkness
spilled forth to sour the earth, stinking of death. Its ire drawn, the demon whirled around to face
Kuwanan, its face stuck in a perpetual grimace. Nightmarish red light shone through one empty eye
socket; the other eye leered, bloodshot, down at the Crane warrior.
“Tsuko, flee! You spared my life once; now it is my turn to repay the favor!” Kuwanan
shouted to Tsuko, who clutched her side. The massive beast had torn a gaping rent in her chestplate.
The oni let out a gut-wrenching howl. A cacophony of voices rose, whispering like the
denizens of Jigoku, and the beast charged at Doji Kuwanan. Altansarnai, who had turned briefly to
watch the struggle, gasped and looked away as the Crane was trodden under the oni’s massive hoof.
When she looked back, a mass of phantom creatures had swarmed what remained of the samurai’s
body.

961
 There was no time to mourn his loss. Her prey was on the move. Another flicker from
Ujiaki’s fan told her he had moved farther south. Altansarnai mounted a fallen soldier’s horse and
urged it forward, over piled corpses and blood-soaked snowdrifts, toward the traitorous ambassador.
Arrows whistled past her as another volley descended. Around her, the battlefield was in complete
disarray—both Imperial and friendly samurai lay, dead or dying, pierced through with arrows, cut
by blades, or slashed through by the phantom horde. The Unicorn Champion thought she saw her
daughter Haruko among them, but when she looked again it was only a trick of the light.
Cresting a hill, she found a skirmish in motion: soldiers locked in combat, archers firing
blindly into the fray, heavy cavalry cutting through wave upon wave of ashigaru. A whistling
screech from an oni pierced the din. It took a moment for Altansarnai to make sense of the tangle of
bodies locked in combat: the soldiers fighting each other all wore the emerald armor of Imperial
forces. Utter chaos seemed to have taken hold.
A hollow voice rang in her ears. “You are deceived, my fellow Lion! Shoju has allied himself
with the evils of the Shadowlands!”
It took a moment for the Unicorn Champion to place the voice, and to see where it originated:
Akodo Arasou, fallen Lion Champion, stood in the midst of the fray. The apparition was swathed
in beryl iridescence, flickering and flashing like a silhouette behind a paper wall, but the voice was
unmistakably his.
“To me, Lion samurai! I, Akodo Arasou, exhort you to defend the reputation of the Lion
Clan. Fight for your families. Fight for your honor. Fight for Rokugan itself!”
Mired in a tangle of warring soldiers was Ikoma Ujiaki, red-faced and blustering. As the
ambassador snapped his fan with one hand, another roar echoed across the battlefield from the oni.
Sensing her opportunity, Altansarnai urged her steed into battle. As if guided by the kami of
the winds, the horse cleaved like a bolt from a crossbow across feuding soldiers, past the glowing
apparition, and carried her to the feet of Ikoma Ujiaki himself. Altansarnai cut two ashigaru down
to make way. Ujiaki sat astride a massive warhorse, resplendent in his leonine beard and golden
regalia. His voice was hoarse from shouting, and his cheeks were flushed. Upon seeing the Unicorn
Champion, he let out a raspy roar and pointed his fan imperiously in her direction. It flashed in the
sun. In that moment, Altansarnai and her blade were one: with a swift motion, she struck at his
outstretched arm and cut it cleanly off.

962
 Howling, Ujiaki looked pleadingly at her. The color drained from his face. Altansarnai
picked up his fan and surveyed the field. The undead horde had vanished. Immediately, the clash of
battle quieted around them.
“Ambassador Ikoma Ujiaki,” Altansarnai raised her curved blade to his throat. “I demand
that you declare your defeat.”
The ambassador’s noble face was saturated with fear. A bead of sweat trickled down his
brow as he nodded gravely. Clutching the stump of his arm, he struggled to dismount his warhorse,
and stood in submission before her, head bowed. The sound of sheathed blades and dropped
weapons issued around them as soldiers witnessed the surrender.
“Ikoma Ujiaki, you have brokered war and deceit, and allied yourself with the agents of the
Shadowlands,” the Unicorn Champion said. The words themselves tasted bitter on her lips. “What
do you have to say for yourself?”
The traitor wept openly, blood staining the fabric of his dusky kimono. Lines of worry and
care traced his face, and his brow was knotted in a look of contrition.
“Champion Shinjo, I beg your mercy. For I have been deceived.”
The general pointed to a slender young woman bedecked in the armor of the Imperial
Legions.
“When Commander Kitsu Chiemi called the spirit of Akodo Arasou, he spoke the truth to
me and my armies. I did not know the depths to which Bayushi Shoju would go to deceive me and
the Imperial forces.”
A hacking cough. Ujiaki looked pleadingly at Shinjo Altansarnai, his hazel eyes brimming
with tears. Altansarnai’s chest tightened as she looked upon the ruin of this once-proud man. Her
eyes strayed to the Kitsu, whose face was drawn in concentration. The ghost of Champion Arasou
continued to bray in the din, exhorting Lion and Imperial forces to put down arms.
“You claim to be ignorant of Shoju’s alliance when you loosed the ghosts of the
Shadowlands on this battlefield. Do you take me for a fool?”
“Those spirits were bonded to the wall from its creation!” Ujiaki exclaimed. “To its very
stones. I merely–”
Altansarnai raised one hand to cut him off. “Even if what you say is true, Ujiaki, you have
betrayed your duty to your clan, to the Emperor, to Rokugan itself. You have schemed and
manipulated—” At this, Altansarnai paused for a moment. She thought of her wedding that might

963
have been, the impossible choice. Tsanuri’s mother, pleading and broken. Even in his supplication,
she saw in Ujiaki’s bearing an utter lack of conviction. There was only animal desperation,
unyielding hunger, and naked ambition.
“You have disgraced yourself and your family, and put all of Rokugan in grave danger,”
Altansarnai said. “The greatest mercy I can offer you is a dignified death.”
A dreadful silence. A snowflake drifted on a stray breeze and landed on the general’s beard,
followed by many more. A heavy, ashen snow began to fall around them, muffling the battle with a
preternatural calm.
“Champion, you do not understand. Shoju bewitched me. The duplicitous Scorpion forced
my hand: I was compelled to act against my will!”
The snow fell upon friend and foe alike, burying the horrors of war in pure white.
Altansarnai’s heart was cold.
“Draw your wakizashi and ready yourself.”
Seeing that his pleas fell on deaf ears, the general’s expression turned to rage. With his
remaining hand, Ujiaki drew his short sword. Hot breath billowed out like smoke in front of him as
he drank the winter air.
“I should have known better than to reason with a Unicorn,” he seethed.
Shinjo Altansarnai saw the flash of predatory inspiration cross Ujiaki’s face as he darted at
her and stabbed at her torso. She stepped lightly to the side, then swung her scimitar with deadly
precision.
“Let the snow bury your lies,” she spoke as his body slumped forward. Her part was done.
Blood bloomed through the blanket of snow.

964
12th Day of the Month of Togashi, 1123, within the Forbidden City

Mirumoto Hitomi would have preferred to be working only with Seppun Ishikawa. If he could get
out of Otosan Uchi in the midst of a battle, then he was the ideal person to get back in under the
same conditions. While the forces that had assembled to bring down the traitors made a very large
distraction, a small party had a hope of slipping in unnoticed—which meant that any defenses
around the palace might be less ready for them. And Ishikawa knew not just the streets and public
gates, but the alleys and side portals. After all, anyone whose duty was to protect the Emperor ought
to know every route by which someone could sneak in.
Not that he’d done a very good job with his duty. But Hitomi couldn’t really despise him for
that, given that the Dragon Clan Champion had sent her here to protect the prince. Togashi Mitsu
might have thought that referred to Daisetsu, but the coup had made it clear: her champion had
meant for her to protect Sotorii. A task she had comprehensively failed. And it wasn’t fair to get
angry at Ishikawa just so she wouldn’t have to be angry at herself—for that mistake, and so many
others.
Ishikawa was fine. Getting to their target, though, required more than just a guardsman’s
knowledge of the palace. It required someone who knew how to exploit every weakness in the
defenses, every person who could be bribed, every routine that left a gap.
It required Bayushi Kachiko.
Hitomi couldn’t decide whether to admire the woman, spit on her, or both. Nothing of the
elegant Imperial Advisor could be found in the woman currently leading her and Ishikawa through

965
a concealed corridor of the Forbidden City. Her kimono was the simple cotton of the servants who
usually frequented these routes, her hair bound up under the sort of kerchief a washer-woman might
wear. Her skin was pocked with a few old scars, her face thinner, her eyes shadowed with exhaustion
that was only partly false. Not a notably ugly woman, just…unremarkable. And the last thing anyone
expected Kachiko to be was unremarkable.
To disguise oneself like that was despicable. To serve the Empire without concern for one’s
self was laudable. The question of how to weigh those two things against one another was something
Hitomi could wrestle with later. For now, she accepted, with gritted teeth, that doing what needed
to be done meant working not only with Ishikawa but with Kachiko—and dressing in borrowed
armor and sneaking through servants’ corridors like a damned shinobi while she was at it.
This was the only way to make up for one of her many mistakes.
I should have killed Shoju when I had the chance.

The ashigaru had just finished strapping Hitomi into her armor when Bayushi Yojiro entered.
“Make it quick,” she snapped, before remembering Yojiro was the Scorpion Clan Champion
now. But there was little time for niceties when what remained of the Army of the Rising Wave was
preparing for battle.
He didn’t comment on her rudeness. “Mirumoto-san. I apologize for the interruption, but
there is someone you need to speak with before you go. Privately.”
She waved the ashigaru out and waited while Yojiro brought two hooded figures in. Hitomi
assumed they were Scorpion spies, bearing some useful intelligence. And maybe the taller one was;
she recognized him from Otosan Uchi. Bayushi no Sentaki Yūgiri, one of Kachiko’s creatures.
But the shorter one was Shoju’s son.
They’d lost him in the chaos, when Shoju’s forces drove the Dragon from their guest house.
The last thing she’d expected was to see him again. Had Shoju sent Dairu to bargain? Did he think
her heart would falter a second time at the sight of the boy?
Dairu sank to his knees in front of her. “Mirumoto Hitomi-sama. I have come to beg you to
stop my father.”

966
The passage they were following was narrow and walled with solid wooden panels, not the
beautifully painted screens of the public areas. Fighting in here would be difficult, if someone found
their little group. Hitomi had braced for Shadowlands monstrosities. But so far, nothing.
Kachiko stopped at a point that looked no different from any other and pressed her ear to the
wood. Then her hands did something Hitomi could not see, and the wall opened onto the room
beyond. How many such hidden portals were there in the palace? How many secrets did the Scorpion
hold? Too many—but these secrets were what had permitted them to slip through nearly unnoticed,
while the battle raged in the city outside.
It felt too easy. And even as Hitomi thought that, Kachiko murmured, “I don’t trust this.”
“If you know about these,” Ishikawa said in a low voice, “then surely the usurper does as
well.”
Kachiko nodded. “He could have guarded them. That he hasn’t done so…means he wants
us to get in. It somehow suits his plan.”
They’d worried about all manner of complications: Shoju setting fire to the palace, Shoju
summoning oni, Shoju slaughtering people by the hundreds in some dark ritual to keep his attackers
out. The whole point of their stealthy trio was to slip in without him noticing and making such
extreme moves.
Instead, they’d played into his hands.
“Perhaps he’s left the palace. Or even the city.” Ishikawa scowled. “Fleeing like a coward.
Or going to join up with the Shadowlands forces.”
“Or,” Kachiko said, “he’s still here, and he’s lying in wait.”
Hitomi was tired of trying to follow the twists and turns of Scorpion logic. There was an old
story about a Togashi monk who spent three years contemplating an intricately knotted rope, trying
to figure out how to loose it. Then one day a Mirumoto bushi passed by and, hearing the monk’s
tale, simply drew his wakizashi and cut the knot apart.
Trickery and plotting had gotten the Empire into this disaster. Maybe what it needed was a
clean swing of the sword to get out.
“He can plan all he wants,” she said, touching the blades at her side. “We’ll see how that
fares against steel.”
Kachiko’s gaze followed Hitomi’s hand and her jaw tightened, but she said nothing.

967
 “Yūgiri-san helped me escape,” Dairu said. “And he helped me take this.” From beneath
his cloak he produced a sheathed, straight-bladed sword.
It looked ancient, and sinister. The wood of its sheath was a red so dark it almost touched
black; the cords that wrapped it were brighter, the red of fresh blood, interlaced with bronze. Hitomi
stared at it, not understanding, until Yojiro spoke quietly. “This is Itsuwari. The ancestral sword of
the Scorpion Clan. By tradition, it is supposed to strike down the Champion if he ever betrays the
Empire.”
Dairu presented the sword in both hands, bowing until his face touched the ground.
“Mirumoto-sama. I humbly request that you take this sword…and use it to kill my father.”

They found Shoju’s trap outside the throne room.

Ishikawa risked a swift glance around the imposing pillar that concealed their group. His
curse went no farther than their ears, but was impressive for its foulness. “Shosuro Ibuki,” he
breathed. “And two others I don’t recognize.”
When he described them, Kachiko looked like she wanted to echo Ishikawa’s curse. “Yogo
Itoju and Soshi Angai. Wardmaster and illusionist,” she murmured. “And Ibuki is better with a
sword than she lets on.”
“Then we will have to be quick,” Hitomi said grimly, reaching for her blades. Not mine, she
reminded herself. The wakizashi, yes—but she was only a temporary bearer for Itsuwari. The hand
of justice, striking down the traitor. Too late to help Sotorii . . . but late was better than giving up.
Kachiko’s eyes narrowed, and she put one hand out to stop Hitomi from drawing. Did she
not have the stomach for blood? If she thought she could protect her clanmates from the fate they’d
earned—
“I have an idea,” Kachiko said. Her gaze swept first over Ishikawa, then over Hitomi in her
plain, borrowed armor. “But… it requires you to trust me.”
Hitomi almost laughed in her face. Trust Kachiko? She might not be the blasphemous traitor
Shoju was, but she was a quintessential Scorpion. Hitomi wouldn’t put it past her to have lured them
both here for—
For what? Their deaths? She could have accomplished that easily, half a dozen times before
now.
Through gritted teeth, Ishikawa asked, “What do you need?”

968
 “Itsuwari,” Kachiko said, holding Hitomi’s gaze. “And your willingness to bend your neck,
Ishikawa.”
She got the latter before the former, but in the end, they went with Kachiko’s plan. A moment
later, she strode around the pillar toward her three clanmates, brandishing Itsuwari high. “I am
Bayushi Kachiko, and I have regained our stolen ancestral sword! Along with a prisoner my husband
will want to see.”
Ishikawa stumbled in her wake with his hands behind his back, Hitomi shoving him along
and trying to keep his greater height between her and the three Scorpion guards. The edge of her
conical helmet partially obscured her face, but she couldn’t duck her chin too far without looking
suspicious. Besides, staying behind him helped conceal the fact that she held Ishikawa’s katana,
ready for him to seize it if the ploy failed.
The swordswoman—Shosuro Ibuki, Hitomi presumed—was questioning Kachiko and
getting an imperious flood of lies in return, something about Kachiko infiltrating the enemy at
Shoju’s orders so as to inform him on their movements. The wardmaster was eyeing Ishikawa with
suspicion and craning his neck to see past the man to where Hitomi stood.
If the ploy fails? That was optimistic. And while attacking mid-conversation was
contemptible… it was also better than letting the enemy strike first.
For the Empire.
Hitomi shoved Ishikawa’s blade into his hands and snatched out her wakizashi. “Kachiko!”
Kachiko’s empty hand suddenly held a knife, flashing across the illusionist’s throat as she
lunged forward. Ishikawa jabbed the sheathed end of his katana into Ibuki’s eye, buying himself
time to draw. Hitomi, armed with only her wakizashi, grimly set her feet to launch herself at the
wardmaster—
Only to catch Itsuwari instead, as Kachiko threw it at her. “Go!” Kachiko shouted.
And Hitomi went. Through the doors of the throne room, kicking them shut behind her—
leaving Kachiko and Ishikawa to fight for their lives, and maybe to die, but they’d all known that
might be the price when they came into the city. Hitomi herself might be about to die this instant,
because someone had just dropped the bar across the doors, sealing her into the throne room, and
sealing her allies out.
From his arrogant seat on the throne, Bayushi Shoju said, “I’ll admit, I didn’t expect you.”

969
“I’m not even a Scorpion.”
Dairu was still kneeling, his arms trembling as he held the sword out. Yojiro said, “Clearly
not. But you are a skilled enough swordswoman to defeat the usurper.”
Hitomi bit down on the urge to ask if he’d lost his wits. “Doesn’t the Scorpion Clan have
any skilled bushi? Ones not loyal to that blasphemer?”
A choked sound came from Dairu. When he lifted his face, she saw the bright trail of a tear
down one cheek. “For what he’s done, my father should be strung up in the Traitor’s Grove.
But—” Dairu was fighting to hold his composure, and slowly, inevitably, he was losing. “Mirumoto-
sama… I love my father. Despite everything he’s done, I love him. I don’t want his soul denied
rebirth, tortured for eternity in a tree. Any Scorpion who could defeat him would try to drag him to
the Grove. Please. He has to be stopped, and you are the only person who can kill him—the only
person who will. Please!”
Dairu bowed once more, hiding his face, but Hitomi could see his shoulders trembling with
suppressed sobs. When she looked at Yojiro, he nodded.
She knelt, bowed, and took the sword.

Hitomi’s gaze raked the throne room. All she saw was Shoju on the throne and one elderly courtier,
the one who’d dropped the bar across the doors. Knowing the Scorpion, he was probably an
assassin—but he backed away and knelt beside the wall. And Shoju laughed.
“No one will interfere,” the usurper said. “Do you think I need minions to defend me, when
I command the might of Jigoku? I know my wife well. While an army keeps Ujiaki busy, of course
she slips in with a small group for a targeted strike.” He sighed heavily. The worst thing about that
sigh was, it sounded sincere. “If only she and I had been in better accord. Shared the same goals,
communicated with one another more clearly. Who knows what the Empire might have become,
then?”
“No amount of talking would have persuaded her to your blasphemy,” Hitomi growled,
stalking forward. Her heart raced, but her hands were steady. She’d stayed her blades once, for
Dairu’s sake… But even the son had turned against the father. “You don’t deserve the love and
loyalty of those around you. The Emperor trusted you. You are no scorpion; you are a spider,
tangling everyone in your web and poisoning them with your evil.”

970
 Shoju rose to his feet. “Yes,” he said, his voice grating like stone against stone. “The
Emperor trusted me—his greatest mistake. I serve another master now.”
He wore a sword at his side, and drew it with theatrical slowness. “I will take great enjoyment
in defeating you. And once I have done so, your blood will feed—”
Hitomi didn’t let him finish. She charged, with Sotorii’s name as her war cry.
Shoju met her charge as if he’d expected it. She knew his reputation: a withered arm, made
strong by magic, and he’d mastered the sword as if in defiance of that weakness. But how often had
he sparred against Sumiko, or anyone else trained in the niten style? Would he be prepared for the
whirlwind that was two blades attacking at once?
The answer, damnably, seemed to be yes. Hitomi’s wakizashi slapped his thrust down and
to the side while Itsuwari cut at his neck, but he dodged with astonishing speed. She pressed him
hard, driving him off the dais and across the floor, yet his single blade had an answer for every move
of her two. Was this Jigoku’s hand at work, granting him speed and strength?
She shouldn’t have let thoughts like that distract her. And she shouldn’t have assumed that
just because he held only one blade, he couldn’t present two threats.
Powder flew into her eyes, blinding her. A jarring thud knocked her wakizashi from her left
hand; then Shoju seized her right in a crushing grip. “This is Itsuwari,” he snarled, so close she felt
the spittle that escaped his mask. “No Dragon deserves to bear it.”
Hitomi’s vision cleared just in time for her to block Shoju’s descending arm before his katana
could strike. She hooked her foot behind his, trying to trip him and failing; when he broke free of
her grip, she clawed at his mask, thrusting her nails at his eyes. Shoju released her, but her fingers
caught the mask’s edge and tore it from his face.
She hurled it at him, gaining an opening to leap back and reclaim her fallen wakizashi. “And
you don’t deserve that mask,” she spat. “The Scorpion may be dishonorable, but always for the
Empire. You have betrayed every principle they hold dear.”
Robbed of its concealment, Shoju’s face gave everything away. Beneath that snarling,
diabolical mask… he was just a man. One who had thrown away everything of value: his duty, his
integrity, his clan and his kin. All the inner fire that gave strength to the true warrior’s spirit and
flesh.
Without that, he was nothing.

971
 Hitomi had her honor, and her wakizashi. She had her fury, and Itsuwari. Two blades,
working as one, weaving a net of steel that Shoju could not escape. He retreated again and again,
backing toward the dais and the throne he had profaned—
Until Hitomi lunged forward and caught his blade between her two. But not as she had done
before, with steel against steel; no, this time she trapped him where the blade met its round guard.
A twist of her wrists wrenched his katana from his hand. It clattered to the floor, and with a
scream, she brought Itsuwari down to cleave him in two.
It came to a gentle stop against his collarbone.
No.
“No,” Shoju breathed.
Hearing her thought echoed from his mouth broke Hitomi from her shock at the blade’s
betrayal. She looked at Shoju—but she didn’t see triumph in his face.
She saw abject horror.
He made no move to disarm her again, to throw more powder or regain his blade. He just
stood, staring at the ancestral sword of the Scorpion, which was supposed to kill any Scorpion Clan
Champion who betrayed the Empire.
Like the thunderbolt flash of enlightenment, everything became clear.
How many individuals had set their differences aside to answer the threat Shoju posed? How
many clans had buried their conflicts—maybe not forever, because no peace could last for all time—
but for long enough to stop the Empire from tearing itself apart?
Hitomi whispered, “You—”
Shoju met her gaze, eyes wide with desperation. And an unspoken plea. “I am the Empire’s
villain.”
Two swords fall from Heaven. Where one refused, the other would succeed.
With a single strike of her wakizashi, Hitomi cut Shoju down.

The old courtier had slumped against the wall. The lined of discolored spittle from his lips spoke of
poison. Someone was pounding on the doors, shouting; Hitomi couldn’t identify the voice through
the pounding of her own heart, thudding like a war drum in her ears. Whoever was outside might be
an ally, and she would live; or they might be an enemy, and she would die.

972
 No. She couldn’t resign herself to that, not yet. Protect the prince, her Clan Champion had
said—and although she had lost Sotorii, he was still out there somewhere.
She hoped. Until she knew, she could not accept death. But before she took up that duty
again, there was one last thing to do.
Hitomi sheathed Itsuwari, then crossed the floor to where Shoju’s mask had fallen. She
picked it up, returned to his body, and settled the mask once more over his face.
Then she went to the doors and let her fate in.

973
974
9th Day of the Month of Togashi, 1123, on the shores of Cherry Blossom Snow Lake

Hida Sukune knew the battle was lost the instant a spear broke through his father’s armor and pierced
his belly. Kisada only noticed the wound after he’d flung his opponent screaming from the side of
the battlements. He collapsed like the fortress gates, blood running free like the fire. The grim honor
guard formed a circle around him, and as they withdrew, Kisada would not look at his son.
It was later said that the Castle of the Forgotten fell only after the Great Bear did.
Kyūden Hida's halls thundered with the wet hasty script of rushed scribes and scrolls rolled
before the ink fully dried. Heralds would carry them to the Great Clan families, to the Imperial
Palace, and beyond. They would learn the Crab’s shame and be warned of what was coming.
It is my failure, not yours. Kisada’s words echoed in Sukune’s head even now. Yakamo had
protested. If the other clans had heeded the Crab—if they’d sent the jade, the resources, then…
Kisada’s wound left him unable to fight. You must lead now, Sukune. Redeem the clan. Do
what you can. Stop Akuma’s march.
At any cost.
Sukune banished the memory and traced the invaders’ course on the map. Akuma no Oni’s
forces had an uncontested path straight to Otosan Uchi.
But he wasn’t going there. Instead, the horde marched northwest, to the Shinomen Forest.
Why? He could shatter the seat of Rokugan’s power. So why not go straight for the capital?
“I have a theory,” said Genzo. The silver-streaked sergeant bore the symbol of the Falcon
Clan. The Toritaka were only a Minor Clan family, but they had maps of Maemikake and the

975
marshes surrounding the Lakes of Cherry Blossom Snow, and more importantly, they’d offered to
help.
“The Council of Twilight was explicit that the Oni Lord cannot be permitted to enter the
marsh. It is dangerous. There is quicksand, predators… and the remains of its victims,” he
emphasized.
Sukune remembered how Akuma’s forces multiplied at the Castle of the Forgotten, broken
bodies rising beneath the oni’s trisected gaze. Warrior puppets. Undead.
The Rokugani cremated their dead. But as he discovered the last time he ventured into the
Shinomen, there were generations of bodies preserved in the muck. Generations of dead.
Was that his plan? In Akodo’s Leadership, clever generals did not burn lands and slay
farmers, instead using enemy resources to build and replenish their own…
Sukune frowned. “I am in agreement with your council.”
They’d overcommitted at the Castle of the Forgotten. Sukune had thought so, but chose not
to speak, trusting his father’s experience and judgement. They had not known their enemy well.
Now, with only a third of the Crab’s mustering forces intact, they were less than a bump in the road.
A last-ditch effort to buy the other clans time to mount their own defenses would put the Crab’s
very future at risk, and perhaps make the Oni Lord even stronger.
I should have said something. But what? That Crab stubbornness and tenacity, their greatest
strengths, would undo them? That they had to become something that they were not? They would
not have listened. They hadn’t before!
The canvas parted. Hida O-Ushi entered, face dusty as her unwashed armor. Sukune was
certain she’d been sleeping in it. Hida Yakamo followed, his tall frame blocking the light.
“The villages are evacuated,” O-Ushi said. “Only a few conscripts worth taking.”
“Any rōnin?”
She ran frustrated fingers through her hair. “A few. Not enough to form a unit. But there
were some volunteers among the peasants. Refugees from Ishigaki Province. Katsuo, their
spokesman… spokes-boy, really… offered some insight that we might use.”
Well that was something. He turned to Yakamo. “Train them with the Sparrow. The Suzume
family seems to work well with farmers.”
“You can keep handing me Minor Clan samurai, little brother, but I sure as hell can’t train
them.”

976
 Sukune pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yakamo, please—”
“A tetsubō is too heavy even for their strongest!” Yakamo argued. “They have no armor,
which eliminates nearly all our formations! And the Fox have nothing resembling real military
training at all!”
“Drill them as ashigaru, then,” O-Ushi shouted. “Do I have to hold your hand?”
“Then they’ll be hewn like wheat!” Yakamo snapped back. “Worthless like the Falcon, who
cannot even hold their swords correctly!”
Toritaka Genzo frowned. “I’m standing right here.”
Enough! Sukune slammed his fist into the table. “Damn it, Yakamo! You know what is
worthless? Excuses.”
Silence. O-Ushi blinked at her brother. Yakamo’s jaw was slack. Even the Falcon seemed
especially interested in a spot on the table.
Sukune slowly unclenched his jaw. He’d never had an outburst like that before, especially
not to his tyrannical older brother. But he hadn’t been feeling much like himself lately. Too much
loss. Too little sleep. Too much at stake. Didn’t Yakamo realize that if they failed—
Yakamo met Sukune’s eyes. “Our ways are not compatible.”
He was right. Their tactics, compiled over generations, were developed for those with Crab
Clan training. But the Minor Clans who had pledged to help… the Sparrow, the Fox, the Falcon, the
Otter… were too different from the Crab. They were as a castle mismatched to its foundation: it
would never stand.
A messenger in turquoise and gold entered and bowed, extending a scroll with the Mantis
Clan seal. Between the three Hida siblings, he seemed unsure who to offer it to. “The Son of Storms
offers an exchange of information and possible cooperation.”
That language was quite deliberate. Yoritomo was offering to join, but not beneath the
Crab’s command. He would not follow any orders but his own.
I should have expected that. But Sukune had hoped that the Lord-Captain knew that too
many generals tore an army in half. Is this how things fall apart, before the fight even begins?
Of course, there was another option.
Kikyo sat at empty attention in the corner. Recovered from deep in the Shinomen, the
legendary armor seemed to be watching the proceedings. Waiting.

977
 He could don it. The spirits it enchained, the massive gashadokuro formed from their skeletal
remains, would follow his orders. He might not need the other clans.
Months ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But if Akuma could bolster his own forces with the
dead, could he also seize control of those the armor summoned? Would using it inadvertently deliver
a gashadokuro directly into the Oni Lord’s hands? The Kuni weren’t certain…
O-Ushi stiffened. “What is that?”
Just beneath the silence came the ring of steel, and distant shouts.
Then a shattering crash as a body tore through the tent, limply smashing into the table.
Sukune followed the others outside. Fires tore haphazardly through the camp, illuminating
bodies locked in desperate struggle. Mounted warriors raised their moonlit blades to bask in the
cries of the dying.
A bloody Hiruma scout knelt at Sukune’s feet. “An ambush! It is the Lost! They must have
infiltrated us at the Castle of the Forgotten!”
Sukune’s blood turned to ice. In his desperation for numbers, had he unwittingly allowed
Tainted samurai who could pass for humans into their ranks?
Yakamo let loose a battle cry as he crashed into one of the Lost and broke her neck. O-Ushi
darted behind him, heaving her warhammer upward until it collided with another Tainted samurai.
Sukune’s sword found its way into his hands. He was swept into his siblings’ wake.
Do what you can.
Sukune chose his opponents, yielding stronger warriors to his siblings. He let his instincts
guide him through the churn, careful not to overexert. But before long came the familiar pains.
Shards in his chest. Joints locking up. The world spinning.
He pulled away, panting against a tree. Just a moment to catch his breath…
“You Kisada’s son?”
He tossed his gaze to a rough-looking woman. Leaning on a strung bow, scars criss-crossing
her cheek, she bore no sword, no sign of family or clan. Just some rōnin, then?
The woman spoke in a husky voice. “You look short on archers, Hida-san. Luckily for you,
I’ve got a business proposition.”
Fewer rōnin than he’d expected had joined his forces. Most seemed only interested in putting
as much space between them and the incoming horde as possible.
Sukune gestured to the battle around them. “This is poor timing for discussing business.”

978
 “From here, it looks like my timing is pretty good.” Procuring a bottle, she brought it to her
lips.
That’s enough of that. There was no time to waste on some flippant and drunk—
She flung the bottle. “Behind.”
Ceramic shattered against a snarling mempō Sukune hadn’t seen coming. The would-be
attacker fell as another drew blades. Sukune backpedaled, but his parry came too slow, too late…
A humming-bulb arrow hammered his sword, correcting his swing just enough to deflect the
attack. Two more arrows, launched simultaneously, planted in his enemy’s throat. Sukune finished
the first before he could rise again.
And as the world steadied itself again, realized he knew her after all.
“You are the Scorpion’s princess-thief,” he deduced. “The Little Wasp.” Tsuruchi.
She grunted. “I only stole what was mine by birthright.”
He’d heard stories of the disowned samurai with the Lion mother and Scorpion father. The
Scorpion’s enemies were quick to recall how she’d captured Traitor’s Keep, her father’s castle, with
just a handful of rōnin. They called it the “Castle of the Wasp” now. One of Doji Satsume’s last acts
as Emerald Champion had been to grant her the protections and status of a Minor Clan, perhaps just
to spite the Crane’s enemies. But had the Emperor ever actually approved this? The Scorpion
claimed that he had not, that he’d died before he could. But then again, the Scorpion hadn’t proved
themselves particularly trustworthy as of late…
“Traveling covertly,” he observed. “Rōnin disguise?”
“Northern lands aren’t so friendly,” she replied. “And some still doubt what I’ve earned.
Maybe, after I’ve helped you deal with pressing matters, the Crab can help with that.”
So she didn’t want money, this time, but political support to refute the Scorpion. Perhaps
word of the Crab’s support of the Mantis had rippled through the Minor Clans?
“You’re hired. Report to my sister. She should get a real kick out of you.”
Tsuruchi dove into the fray. Sukune followed with his gaze. Nearby, three Sparrows sent a
mounted Lost crashing with their slings. Another Lost leaped on an unarmed Kitsune shugenja, only
to be batted aside by a gossamer silhouette that Sukune swore resembled a bear. A riverboat guard
of the Otter disarmed an attacker with a boat oar and sent him sprawling. A Toritaka hunter, spinning
a spear around his body, abruptly stabbed an empty space. A robed opponent materialized on the
weapon and fell dead.

979
 It was as if the Lost simply didn’t know how to deal with them. They had expected Crab,
not a ragtag band of Minor Clans. They were too unpredictable…
Do what you can.
Of course. He’d been looking at it all wrong!
The were neither hammer nor anvil. They were saw and axe, awl and chisel, cord and net.
He’d been trying to organize them like Crab, hammer them into those tactics, that role. But they had
their own unique ways. He just had to judge which tool to use and when.
And he could. He knew how. Like the winning move of shogi, the solution to winning this
war materialized before his eyes...
A wave of green fire. Shadows thrown like fishermen's nets. Flames crashed through the
skirmish, charring the screaming Lost, leaving the rest untouched.
Sukune blinked. What?
Beneath renewed battle cries, the tide turned and the Lost fell back. Whoever had invoked
the jade flames just delivered them victory. But it could not have been the Kuni, or it would have
happened at the battle’s start. So who had aided them? Who came?
Across the lake, Sukune finally spotted the fluttering banners. Red and orange. The symbol
of the Phoenix. And beyond, a force bearing the heraldry of the Inferno Guard.
He almost didn’t believe his own eyes. What were the Phoenix doing here? It would be days,
perhaps weeks before any message reached their lands.
Distantly by the lakeside, Hida Yakamo towered over a young Shiba woman and an older
Asako. Even in the dim light, Sukune recognized the woman’s sword and the gentle glow of her
purple eye. She was Shiba Tsukune, Phoenix Clan Champion.
And her hand was on her blade. And Yakamo was yelling.
No!
Sukune broke into a sprint. His chest tightened with the exertion, but he pushed on.
Why would his brother pick a fight with the Phoenix Champion? Especially now? Yakamo’s
impulsive streak earned him many enemies. Had something happened between them?
O-Ushi matched his stride. “It’s the Phoenix! They must have—” She paused. “What is it?”
His lungs were on fire. Between gasps, he managed two words. “Yakamo. Diplomacy.”
She blanched and matched Sukune’s sprint.

980
 He had no breath left when they both tumbled into the confrontation. Yakamo’s tetsubō was
in hand, the young champion looking defiantly into his face. “You are mistaken,” she said. “Asako
Tsuki would never have consorted with such forces. You are a liar.”
“Challenge me if you wish,” Yakamo growled. “But first prepare two pyres.”
Sukune hesitated. Was the champion looking for someone? Who was Tsuki?
Tsukune spoke to the man beside her. “Maezawa-san, show him reason.”
The sage offered a withered smile. “Bloodshed is unnecessary. Simply take us to Tsuki, and
we’ll sort all this out.”
“Impossible,” Yakamo replied. “For now.”
The Phoenix were silent as Yakamo spoke. Plainly he recounted the battle that led them here,
purposefully calling Akuma no Oni by name. The Phoenix paled as he did, but none matched the
alarm of the Phoenix Champion’s face, as if in dire realization.
Sukune almost missed his brother’s glance, a look that seemed to say, “I can handle this.”
Was he attempting a trade, the messenger’s fate for aid from the Phoenix? Yakamo was a brute, but
he was not the dullard many believed him to be.
The Shiba tilted her head, as if something invisible whispered in her ear. At last, her hand
withdrew from her blade. “Show me where I am needed,” she said. “I’ll do my best.”

“That is the plan,” Sukune finished. Officers from the other clans exchanged quiet looks as he spoke.
“It is eccentric. Unconventional. But it is based on what I’ve observed of your strengths. It will come
together if we trust each-other.” He regarded the room with all the confidence he could muster.
“Questions?”
Yoritomo approached.
Sukune’s jaw locked as the pirate loomed over the map. All eyes followed him, the only
champion that hadn't deferred his command. If the Son of Storms disagreed with the plan, then he
would simply disregard it. He could ruin everything. Yakamo tensed. O-Ushi held her breath.
Yoritomo tapped the image of a narrow pass. “Deploy me there.”
A collective gaze shifted to Sukune.
“By yourself?”
Yoritomo nodded. “Deploy the rest of the Mantis where you think they are strongest. Put me
in the pass, and not a twisted soul will cross it.”

981
 That would spare valuable fighters from what could become a death trap, allowing a
bolstering of the front and reserves. But it also meant an entire flank relied on one warrior.
“You see a problem?”
Not quite a challenge. Sukune chose his words carefully. “Not on its face, Yoritomo-sama.
However, one would normally entrust such a position with at least twenty of one’s strongest men.”
A few knowing snickers arose from the Mantis officers.
Yoritomo crossed his arms. “I’ll manage.”
As the others filed out to prepare, Yakamo approached, regarding the map with a sneer. “It’s
not what father would have devised.”
I know. But we have to change. The Crab are the wall, and that’s the problem.
Instead, Sukune said, “I’m willing to consider something better.”
The Crab could not absorb another heavy loss. They could not stand aside, but another loss
like their last against the Oni Lord would mean the death of the clan, in more ways than one.
A heavy hand on his shoulder. Yakamo shook his head. “No. This will work.” He paused.
“I trust you.”
Sukune’s chest rumbled as he watched his brother leave. Yakamo had never said anything
like that before. Not even when they were children.
He hoped he would be worthy of it. Even if everything went as planned, he still wasn’t sure
it would work.

14th Day of the Month of Togashi, 1123, somewhere in the Shadowlands

There is a darkness within you, Tadaka.

Isawa Tadaka gasped. This time the vision spoke not with his ancestor’s voice, but that of
his teacher. His eyes searched the broken horizon. He wondered where Rujo was now…
“Master Tadaka?”
Asako Tsuki pinched her brow as her eyes narrowed.
He pulled back his sleeve, revealing a string of jade beads. By now over half had lost their
luster, dimming to the dull shade of exhausted charcoal. But the other orbs did not burn his flesh.
He wasn’t Tainted.
“It’s not that,” Tsuki said. “You looked like you were in pain.”

982
 “I’m okay.” But he did not know if that was true. His hand wandered to the handle of Kuni
Yori’s wakizashi at his hip, as if he could borrow some of the strength of the Kaiu sword.
“We’re here,” said Kuni Yori.
Yori halted on a small hill overlooking the wastes. The land beneath was a massive bowl-
shaped indentation in the cracked earth, as if a Fortune had pressed a massive thumb into the ground.
Tsuki frowned. “It’s… an empty plain.”
“Okay,” squeaked Spike. “We saw it. We can go back now.”
Kuni Yori ignored them, fixated on something beneath him. “What is the story of the Seven
Thunders?”
The aragoto-style makeup, fashioned after a kabuki stock character, rendered Yori’s
expression unreadable. After all this time, he’d never actually seen Yori’s face.
Tsuki answered. “During the first War Against Darkness, when all seemed lost, the Little
Teacher gathered seven warriors to confront Hantei’s fallen brother. These were the ‘Seven
Thunders,’ one from each of the newly formed Great Clans. They followed Shinsei into the
Shadowlands and defeated the Ninth Kami, saving the Empire.”
Yori nodded. “And the rest?”
Tsuki looked confused. But then, few knew the whole story.
Tadaka continued. “Shiba could not abandon the Phoenix Clan Thunder—Isawa, his rival
and friend. Seeking him in the Shadowlands, he instead found Shinsei and a gravely wounded
Shosuro, carrying twelve scrolls that Isawa had written. Shiba gave his life to save them.”
Yori gestured to the crater. “This is where it happened. This is where the Seven Thunders
fought the Ninth Kami. This is where Fu Leng fell.”
Reaching into his satchel, Yori withdrew a smooth mask. Porcelain. Featureless. White.
He offered it to Tadaka.
“This is what I wanted to show you. You may turn away if you wish. We can return to
Rokugan. Or you can kill me here. That might be better.” Yori shrugged. “But I believe this is what
you seek, Tadaka. It’s what you’ve always sought. It called to you.”
Tadaka regarded him carefully. “How long have you known?”
“Does it matter?”

983
 No. It didn’t. Perhaps Yori knew about the visions and planned all this. But all his life,
Tadaka’s heart beat in this direction; all his dreams pulled him here. He had one last step. His life
was meaningless if he didn’t take it.
He accepted the mask. “Tsuki-san. Spike-in-the-Gut. Kindly remove my head if something
goes wrong.”
Then, before they could object, he placed it over his face.
Before him rose a black fortress. Glossy stone formed a triangular foundation upon which a
nine-tiered temple arose, the highest seeming to vanish into the sky. Purple and red orbs cast the
temple in nightmarish hues, while faceless beings in monk trappings dragged themselves across its
cursed decks.
Yori had brought them to a temple built by misguided souls. The Temple of the Ninth Kami.
The resting place of Fu Leng himself.
Perhaps Yori could see it because he was Tainted. Invisible to the others, this mask, whatever
it was, unveiled it to Tadaka.
“By Lady Sun,” he whispered.
Tsuki and Spike must have misunderstood, because no sooner had Tsuki cried out Tadaka’s
name than Spike leaped forward, smoothly drawing the wakizashi from its sheath at Tadaka’s side.
But instead of bringing the Kaiu-forged blade to his throat, the ratling lunged at the sword’s owner.
Yori did not resist as it slid beneath his sternum.
Indeed, he barely seemed to even notice.
“What have you done?” Tadaka demanded, “He hasn’t harmed me! He was—”
“It is fine,” Kuni Yori said, sliding to his knees. “I wasn’t coming back from this in any case.
Besides, this ratling may have just saved your life.”
A dagger, hidden in Yori’s sleeve, clattered to the ground.
Spike kicked it away. “Nice try, zakseker.”
Of course. This close to the temple, even Yori would not be able to resist the Taint’s
whispers. He knelt by Yori’s side.
“Listen.” Yori’s breath was shallow. Blood flecked his lips. “When Shinsei and Shosuro
returned with the Black Scrolls, Kuni himself met them… as did Togashi-no-Kami, who had
expected them. Before succumbing to her wounds, Shosuro gave Kuni an account of the battle

984
between the Thunders and Fu Leng. They kept the record secret, guarded.” He licked his bloody
lips. “Until it was stolen by your ancestor, the Elemental Master who gave his name to an oni.”
Isawa Akuma. The one who appeared in his dreams. The one who led him to those secret
teachings, techniques that his teacher had tried to bury. The one who begged for absolution. For
redemption.
“I believe it was brought here,” Yori continued. “I believe it rests inside.” He grabbed
Tadaka’s collar, steadying himself. “That firsthand account tells how the Thunders defeated Fu
Leng. It could contain details, clues that could reveal his weaknesses… how to do it again. How to
do it for good. Because he’s coming, isn’t he?” Yori met Tadaka’s eyes. “He’s grown stronger over
the years, hasn’t he?”
The Kami Who Fell. Was that the darkness he’d felt? Was that the threat that haunted him
ever since he first opened his eyes and saw his ancestor’s face? Was the oldest of the Empire’s
enemies somehow behind their misfortunes? Not a thousand cuts, but one. Not mortals, but gods?
Perhaps not. Perhaps their calamities were always by their own human hands. He couldn’t
fix that. But this was something he could fix. This was something he could solve.
“But you’re not certain,” Tsuki said.
“No,” Yori admitted. “I could be in error.” He looked to Tadaka. His yellowed eyes looked
so tired. “It is up to you, my student. It is your choice.”
All his life, Tadaka felt that something terrible was coming and that, whatever it was, the
Empire was not prepared. He felt this so deeply that he’d dedicated his life to preparing the Phoenix.
And now, here he was. Everything he’d given, every doubtful look and second-guess he’d endured,
had led him here. Knowledge, long lost, could save the Empire. Their past, through the lens of the
present, could save their future.
Tadaka turned toward the obelisks and took his first step.

985
13th Day of the Month of Togashi, 1123, on the shores of Cherry Blossom Snow Lake.

“He just arrived,” Hida Yakamo hissed at full stride. “No announcement, no warning.”
Hida Sukune frowned. How was that possible? The Crab Clan’s missives left only two weeks
ago.
Hida O-Ushi and the Phoenix Champion Shiba Tsukune lingered just outside the command
tent. Under less-urgent circumstances, Sukune might have contemplated how the two seemed ever
more inseparable over the last few days.
“Is it him?” Sukune asked his sister.
O-Ushi nodded. “He looks real to me.”
“You’re acting like children. He’s just a man.” Yakamo threw the tent flap aside.
Within stood a towering figure encased in ancient armor and flowing silks, a sentinel of pine
green and gold. Were it not for his rippling bare arms painted in dizzying tattoos, Sukune might
have assumed that the armor was empty, for he could not see the eyes beneath the warrior’s intricate
mask. He was massive, perhaps equal in height to Sukune’s own father. He gave no
acknowledgement, silently regarding the battle map.
The others peeked around Yakamo into the tent. “I take it he’s not expected,” Tsukune
whispered.
Sukune tried to keep his voice calm. “That is Togashi Yokuni, Master of the High House of
Light and Champion of the Dragon Clan.”

986
 Tsukune’s eyes bulged. “That’s the grand abbot?” She openly regarded his height. “I thought
he was a Hida!”
There was a saying in the Empire: “Seeking answers, ask a Kitsuki; seeking questions, ask
a Togashi.” Sukune spent his whole life seeking answers in study. Knowledge opened doors, and
nothing frightened him once he understood it, not even the monsters of the Shadowlands. But
nothing about Togashi Yokuni made sense. He was a puzzle-box without solution, something that
could not be studied or understood.
“Did he come alone?” Sukune asked.
“He brought a cadre of monks,” O-Ushi replied. “Some medics, some archers.” A pointed
look. “Dragon’s Flame.”
He knew the tattooed monks of the Togashi Order only by reputation. Whether or not the
stories were true—stone-sundering punches, flames pouring from their mouths, their bodies
unaffected by hunger or cold, feet running lightly across lily pads—Sukune could not say. But they
needed medics desperately, and acclaimed archers like the Dragon’s Flame would be more than
welcome. Given his scouts’ latest reports regarding Akuma’s numbers, he wasn’t about to turn away
any allies, regardless of how much or how little he knew about them.
Perhaps Yokuni’s party would even be enough to turn the tide.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Yakamo said, loudly. “He is a Dragon. He might just be here to
watch.”
Not for the first time in his life, Sukune wished he was taller, so he could wring his brother’s
neck.
Yokuni turned. Was that a flicker of golden light Sukune saw, deep beneath the shadow cast
by the helm?
“Hida Sukune-sama,” Yokuni said. “The reasonable one.”
A chill ran down Sukune’s spine. Yokuni’s voice, deep and resonating, spoke clear and
unhindered by the mask on his face. He was not comfortable with how deeply the Dragon Champion
bowed to him, and he carefully matched it with a bow of equal depth.
“I offer you our assistance. Would that I could offer more. The outcome of this day will
decide the future.” He paused. “Just like every other day.”
Sukune considered his reply. Yokuni had to know how desperate the situation was. He didn’t
want to risk offending the Dragon Clan Champion, but his mind would remain distracted if he didn’t

987
ask the question churning in his own head. He had to know. “Forgive me, Champion Togashi, but
our message to the High House of Light was sent only days ago.”
Silence.
“Yet here you are now,” Sukune pushed. “How did you get here?”
“How?” The Dragon Champion seemed taken aback. “Why, we walked.”
Walked?! From the High House of Light?! “But that would take months!”
Yokuni nodded. “Yes, it did.”
Sukune grasped for words. Had Yokuni foreseen this? How?
Shiba Tsukune stepped forward and bowed. Her clan dealt with the Dragon often; Sukune
gladly yielded this matter to her.
“We accept, Master of Dragons. Thank you.”
Yokuni returned the gesture. “Consider it a favor returned, old friend.”
Tsukune’s brow pinched, but she said nothing.
In Yokuni’s wake, O-Ushi leaned in to whisper. “‘Old friend?’ I thought you didn’t know
him.”
Tsukune shook her head. “I never met him before just now.” She smirked at O-Ushi’s
questioning look. “Still, that wasn’t even the oddest thing a Togashi has ever told me.”

14th Day of the Month of Togashi, 1123

When the heated pinpricks against her face finally faded away, replaced by a breeze and the sweet
smell of poplar, Matsu Tsuko finally opened her eyes.
Before her, an endless forest reached toward the horizon of the predawn sky. Poplar only
bloomed in spring, so at first the scent confused her. But the prideful Shinomen followed its own
seasons, didn’t it?
Behind her, the spirit road faded into a dream she had not quite awoken from. How long had
she been walking with her eyes shut? How long had she ambled upon what had to be the Emperor’s
Road, that mystic pathway sometimes opened by the Seppun shugenja? And now, like no time
passed at all, she was here.
She crossed her arms as she surveyed the fires of the armies camped beneath her spot on the
hill. “Rag-tag” didn’t even begin to describe it. Everything was scattered, with no war-curtain to

988
hide their numbers and too many tents clustered together. But then, based on what Mirumoto Hitomi
had reported, it wasn’t as if the Crab were operating at full force, and they likely didn’t have the
time to make a proper camp.
“Poor Kisada—the plight of the Great Bear’s cubs must be dire if they are scrambling like
this,” she said. “They need a leader: someone who can rally them into a stronger formation. Why
can’t I just—”
A golden voice replied, “Because you have forgotten how to follow.”
From anyone else, she would have struck them down, repudiated them for daring to suggest
that the Matsu daimyо̄ and Lion Clan Champion could not follow orders. But from him? She
clenched her jaw against the harsh truth.
She’d never really had to follow anyone before. Her own gempuku had been rushed and
early, and she was immediately elevated from student to daimyо̄. Only days after being hailed as
the Matsu family’s head, she was forced to fight her usurper uncle and his forces—a man her father
had forgiven, a man she’d always trusted. Forced to prove that she could lead in spite of her age, all
the while questioning the motives of every advisor. And when she’d finally won, no one dared give
her orders again.
Well, almost no one.
“You’re right,” she finally admitted. “I… I’ll try to learn.”
It wasn’t going to be easy, putting herself at the discretion of other clans. But if the Lion
were to regain the clout Ujiaki had cost them, if they were to continue to stand tall beside the other
Great Clans, she had to prove that she could work with them. She had to redeem her clan, as only
the Lady of Lions could. Without forfeiting who she was, she had to find her place among them,
and earn their trust.
She smirked wryly. Are you laughing at me right now, Toturi? Will I ever have to admit to
your face that you were right all along? That I would have to learn patience?
Hesitantly, she unlaced her fingers from the gossamer hand that held hers. Already she
missed its warmth.
“I’ll still be here, Tsuko, in every way that matters.”
She nodded, swallowing hard against a sudden swell of tears.
His spirit vanished.
“Goodbye,” she whispered. “For now.”

989
Just before sunrise, beside a cascade in the Shinomen Marsh.

“Pick up the pace!” Yoritomo’s voice thundered above splintering wood, hammering, and the strikes
of hungry axes. “Pile them up! We haven’t much time! I know you can move faster, Aito, I’ve seen
you at dinnertime!”
He stood back to inspect their handiwork. Numerous river boats, fishing boats, and a few
smaller kobune lay beached and stacked to either side, narrowing the already-tight pinch point
formed by the trees, rocks, and cascades between the forest proper and Cherry Blossom Snow Lake.
Mantis hacked timber from the moored vessels, while others dragged them into position to reinforce
the makeshift barriers.
This would help ensure attackers would be funneled to him. They would be forced to come
one at a time. It would maximize his ability to defend the command line. After all, he was effectively
the only one protecting them from being flanked.
He didn’t especially like the thought of shrinking his fleet like this. The wind carried the
scent of poplar, and he couldn’t help but glance at the fertile, untouched boughs of the Shinomen
nearby. All this lumber, right here, within reach…
But then, that suggestion hadn’t been particularly well-received when he raised it, had it?
The united protests of every shugenja within earshot—Fox, Phoenix, and Falcon—had led him to
reconsider. Now was no time to tempt fate, even if their collective horror did make him want to do
it even more.
He stroked his goatee as his boatswain approached. The man didn't bother saluting; such
formality was for the benefit of outsiders, not bonded crew—not family. “I can manage two more if
needed, Captain, but any more and we’ll be sleeping stacked on the way home.”
Yoritomo nodded. “This should do, Izen. Well done.”
Susano-o no Izen shook his head at the exposed bones of the ruined riverboats. “And this is
going to give you some kind of edge?”
Yoritomo pointed to the features that would funnel enemies into this pass. “You can see, if
they want to cut through and attack the command line directly and if they want to avoid the torii
arches surrounding the wood—as I’m told they do—they must either risk getting lost in the marshes
or follow the cascades to this pass. Sukune may be a shrimp, but he’s got good tactical sense.”

990
 Izen looked like he was chewing on his thoughts, unwilling to spit them out.
Yoritomo followed his gaze back to the riverboats. A few were still in one piece. To the
untrained, they might even still be seaworthy. But the Mantis here knew better. Kobune were
assembled from fitted hand-carved planks, treated cedar and fire-bent pine, and when placed into
the water, the wood swelled to form a waterproof seal. They were dependable so long as they
remained in water. But once dried, the planks shriveled; these boats would never sail again.
“Always stay in the sea,” Izen murmured. “That is what your father once said.”
But didn’t the sea also eat away at the ship the longer it was away? Didn’t they often abandon
vessels, or rebuild them, to replenish them or to make them stronger? Every boat was ultimately
disposable. It was the crew that made the vessel, not the other way around.
People, not ships, were the heart of the Mantis.
“We cannot stay at sea forever,” Yoritomo replied. “Eventually, one must put his feet on
land. Besides, the Crab have proven true allies.” He slapped Izen on the back with a harsh laugh.
“And wouldn’t it be nice to say that the stuck-up Great Clans owe their lives to the Mantis?”
A smirk tugged the corner of Izen’s mouth. “Perhaps. But that would only have worth if the
Mantis cared for the affairs of the mainland.”
Yoritomo grinned in the first rays of dawn. “That, my friend, we very well may.”

Later that morning at the war camp.

O-Ushi flagged down the rider as he passed the readied troops, wondering eyes following his limp
form. He all but collapsed into her arms. The other scouts, just a handful of survivors, didn’t look
much better.
“We delayed them as much as we could,” the Hiruma scout rasped. His eyes were sunken,
his flesh pale.
“You bought us much-needed time,” O-Ushi said. “You made your family proud.”
He went limp.
“See to his wounds!” O-Ushi barked. Within moments, medics in green and gold had taken
him and the others to the tent in the back of the line.
This meant the Shadowlands forces were nearly at their doorstep. Her hands gripped her
twin war fans, and she replayed the plan in her mind. From here, she would coordinate the initial

991
volleys and the resistance against the vanguard. But there was only so much she could do in the first
phase. Much would rely on the individual commanders. The plan depended on them maintaining
control over their units, and a worrying amount of them were inexperienced ashigaru. If something
went wrong…
A break into the command line would disrupt all orders. Instead of acting as one, the army
would break into independent units. It was inevitable, but they had to delay that for as long as
possible, soften up the enemy before it could manage to reach them.
As she surveyed the others, the Shinomen loomed large to the north. Memories assailed her:
samurai vanishing into the mists beyond the narrow trails, monstrous things crashing through their
ranks, and her foolish cousin’s broken body sunken into the mud. That place was alive and
malicious, hostile to all humankind.
Unless you were a Fox Clan shugenja, apparently. This was the third day since they’d
vanished into the woods, attempting to commune with the spirit of the forest itself. Perhaps they
would succeed, and the Shinomen would somehow come to their aid. She’d hoped it wouldn’t take
this long. But without word or sign, she had to assume they had not yet succeeded.
Wouldn’t it have just been better to give them spears and show them how to use them?
Sukune’s voice replayed in her mind. This plan is not a disregard of our traditions. It is
making room for theirs. Let them play to their strengths, sister.
“You’d better be right,” O-Ushi grumbled.
Because they’d just run out of time.
The first skeletons shambled over the distant horizon, broken armor hanging loosely off their
rotting frames. Bakemono scattered around them, goblins in line formations with heraldic flags
waving from their backs. Here and there, reptilian beasts crawled on all fours, tongue-filled maws
dripping with smoking liquid. Spawn of Akuma no Oni, no doubt.
And then, O-Ushi realized with a wave of revulsion that sapped her of warmth, shambling
bodies that were far fresher than the others, encased in Crab Clan armor. The Barracks of the
Damned, which had laid in Akuma’s path, must have also fallen to his forces. The damned, Tainted
samurai that had not quite succumbed to the Shadowlands would not have needed much to be pushed
over the brink.

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 And behind them, the rest. Swarms of hordes. Hundreds upon hundreds. Giants stepping
around the smaller beings. Nightmares fresh off the page of ghost stories. She could not count them
all.
You’re outnumbered. Twenty or thirty to one. There’s no way you live through this.
“The grounds are consecrated,” Tsukune assured her, or perhaps herself. The Phoenix
Champion couldn’t take her horror-filled eyes off the swarming mass. She probably had never seen
anything like this before.
O-Ushi glanced across the field. Her brother, Hida Sukune, stood elevated on the command
platform, the banners of the Crab, Phoenix, and several Minor Clans fluttering beside his personal
unit. He met her gaze.
“It’s okay,” O-Ushi told Tsukune. “My brother knows what he’s doing.”
She nodded.
His lips moved. The first command. The officer by his side, wearing the heraldry of the Otter
Clan, made rapid gestures with his fans, which rippled across the other heralds’ fans.
She repeated them with her own war fans.
The line of Sparrow samurai unleashed their first coordinated volley. It was impressive
range, perhaps 900 shaku. O-Ushi imagined a hail of fist-sized stones showering down at incredible
speed. Someone struck by that would not walk away.
The effect was devastating. The entire goblin advance halted completely. One stone struck
the head of a scaled nightmare three times the size of a human being. It fell instantly, and cheers
erupted from the Sparrow.
Volley exhausted, the Sparrow pulled back to their stone piles, and the archers took their
place. The Falcon and Wasp released an arching volley of arrows that blackened the sky, followed-
up by a volley from the Dragon’s Flame. O-Ushi followed the shadow as it fell upon the advancing
hordes. Dozens felled by willow-leaf arrows. Anguished cries of dying monsters.
The archers stepped back to reload. Another volley from the slings covered them.
The slingers stepped back. Another archer’s volley. More fell. Again and again.
The horde crushed the bodies of the fallen beneath their march. Undeterred. A wave of
nightmares.
“Let’s do it,” O-Ushi said, and made several fan gestures in succession. Tsukune turned and
did the same toward the Phoenix forces behind her.

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 Ashigaru marched at her command, while the heavily armored Crab samurai stayed behind
in reserve. At their front, Katsuo, the farmer’s son who had volunteered to join, shouted commands.
The volleys of sling and bow continued, but it could only whittle the enemy down. The ashigaru
stopped mid-field, clustered together, their spears forward. They waited as the horde closed the gap,
scrambling across the flood plain, racing toward them.
And they broke. The unit shattered into rabble, the screams of panicked spearmen raising
above the din as they scrambled over each-other, pushing others aside.
O-Ushi felt Tsukune’s glance. Wait for it.
A handful of armored ashigaru bodies lay trampled by their kin. The horde dove upon them,
claws breaking through their thin armor, digging deep, showering the field with—
Straw.
The oni spawn paused as one, as if bewildered. These bodies were straw instead of flesh.
Tsukune gave the signal. A chorus of voices rose from the Phoenix, two dozen prayers to
the kami offered as one. Even from here, O-Ushi spotted the glow of the offerings hidden within the
straw dummies. She couldn’t hold back her grin.
The blast tore through the Shadowlands vanguard with a massive gout of flames. The
consecrated grounds, prepared over days by the Phoenix, spread the fires across the horde’s ranks.
At once, the “fleeing” ashigaru spun on their heels. The Crab joined them in a charge, voices raised
together.
O-Ushi grinned as Katsuo charged with his spear in front, the others rallying behind him.
“Not bad.” It took years for some officers to earn that sort of trust from their soldiers, to learn how
to maintain control of a unit, to disengage and then reform. He’d learned it in a week. That could
have gone very wrong, but he managed it. Perhaps there was more to the boy than she’d originally
perceived.
“Should we reinforce?” Tsukune asked.
Good question. Letting the Shiba join now would give more offensive power, but the plan
was to hold them in reserve in case enemies broke through to the north. O-Ushi looked upward in
the direction of their exposed flank. No kites, no sound of whistling bulb arrows. That meant the
Son of Storms still held the pass. She could picture him now, knee-deep in river water, kama
whirling in a blade-storm as he cut goblins down. No one had enough stamina to keep that up

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forever. If Yoritomo fell, then these reserves were all that stood between the horde and the command
unit. Could she trust that he would hold out?
A conch-shell horn resounded across the fields. Surprised cries to her right. Tsukune gasped.
O-Ushi spun in place, her gaze raking down the line, past the units commanded by her elder brother,
past the ashigaru there clashing with undead, finally settling on what was breaking through the
western pass.
Armored figures on horses. Spear infantry. Archers. Armor glittering in blues, indigos, and
bright silver. The heraldry of the Daidoji family fluttering proudly on their backs. The Doji’s Fan
cavalry. The Iron Cranes. And predominantly before them, the personal banner of the Daidoji family
daimyо̄.
Daidoji Uji. It could be no one else.
From across the field, their herald flashed a series of signals. They were offering to replace
the reserves and announcing that a unit of Iron Cranes were engaged on the west-most flank. Already
her brother replied. Offer accepted. They would form a pincer to separate and crush.
O-Ushi shook her head. She didn’t understand. “We didn't ask for them,” she uttered. “We
didn’t ask for help. Yet here they are.”
“Of course!” Tsukune said. She gripped her sword and prepared to join a new charge. “This
is their home too! We’d all give our lives to protect it.”
O-Ushi sighed and readied her warhammer. “Good,” she said with a smile. “But let’s try to
keep it from coming to that.”

Bayushi Yojiro slowly came to with a spear tip inches from his face, and a woman’s voice shouting
for him to identify himself. He grunted and brushed the spear tip away, rubbing his sore eyes as he
sat up. Others surrounded him, and he was sure implements of death were being jabbed toward him.
But he couldn’t think about that now. His head throbbed icily, the sunlight was like daggers, and
each tiny movement stuck him with a thousand pins.
Where was he? Outside? There was a breeze on his cheek. Somewhere, in the distance, came
shouting. Lots of shouting.
A marketplace, perhaps? Was he in an alley, or…?
No. Soft ground. Leaves. He was in a forest, somewhere.
“Is that… the Honest Scorpion?”

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 Yorijo fought the disorientation, willing himself to focus on the woman before him. He
didn’t know her, or at least he didn’t recognize her face above the sash that covered her nose and
mouth, but her kimono’s crest identified her as belonging to the Yogo family.
“Where am I?” he asked.
The woman ignored him, instead pushing forward and grabbing for what he held. He
followed her gaze to his hands. There, a jitte glinted darkly, the wrapped handle shaped like a
scorpion’s tail, jade ribbons in the metal of the shaft. A spiderweb of shadow in the steel. Loss and
pain.
Examining the jitte from the safehouse’s secret cache was the last thing he’d done. Now,
here he was.
“My apologies, Bayushi-sama, but you really ought not to go picking up belongings that are
not yours.” The speaker was accompanied by several others in nondescript outfits. Their faces were
also covered, but not according to Scorpion custom. No, these were to prevent identification.
What was going on, here? Who were they? Had this woman summoned the jitte, and in so
doing, dragged him along with it? He shook his head. He couldn’t string his thoughts together, but
there was some feeling that he knew who these people were, what they were doing here. If only the
fog could break for a moment, if only…
It was the call of a conch-shell horn that sharpened his mind, followed by the furious thunder
of war drums. These were army sounds. Sounds of battle. For the first time, he actually turned and
looked at what unfolded beyond the trees.
Before him was a macabre mural or nightmare scroll brought to life, a cacophony of
creatures that should not exist, claws and fangs and scales and exposed bones. The dead were
walking beneath them, heedless to the brutal strikes of the living, desperate to hold them back. Blood
soaked into the soil and made red mud.
Akuma no Oni’s army.
“I am Yogo Kikuyo,” the woman said. “You do not know me, but you assisted an associate
of mine in the City of Lies. Would that you were not summoned here, but, well.” She gestured to
the jitte’s handle, where light shaped like a complex ward slowly faded. “Bad timing, perhaps.”
The screams of the dying beyond the copse. “Is this Hell?” he murmured.
“No.” She narrowed her eyes at the slaughter. “But soon it will be.”

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The Temple of the Ninth Kami, the Shadowlands.

“Stay close, Spike,” Asako Tsuki murmured.

A faceless monk turned toward her voice, head tilted, as if intrigued. But then the creature
resumed shelving moldy books. The ratling pressed herself into Tsuki’s back. Tadaka couldn’t read
Spike’s expression, but the hesitance in her body language was universal. There was no way either
of them would fall far behind his steady pace.
A centipede the size of a fishing boat clattered across the ceiling. Tsuki and Spike shrank as
they passed beneath it. An ancient pair of zori sandals, which had sprouted spider’s legs and a human
eye, scuttled under their feet; Tadaka readjusted the porcelain mask and carefully stepped around
them. He recognized these nightmares from Kuni lore: “transformed beings,” changed by their time
in the Shadowlands. Yet none moved to stop them, or even to acknowledge them at all.
It had to be the mask. As long as he wore it, these beings would disregard him. And this
seemed to extend to the others, so long as they stayed close. But then, Tsuki and Spike hadn’t been
able to see the temple until they crossed the threshold. Bombarded with these horrors the instant
they stepped inside, they’d clung to him ever since.
Where had Yori secured such a prize? What exactly was this thing?
“We’re almost there,” Tadaka reassured them, but he couldn’t hide the wavering in his voice.
“How do you know?” Tsuki whispered. She took in the rows of bound codices and scroll
cases along the seemingly infinite shelves. “This is not at all like any library I’ve ever seen.”
They strode past a horned giant that gave them no notice. The cobwebbed library stretched
in all directions, yet Tadaka already knew where to go. He’d walked this path many times in dreams
already.
The hall opened up into a grand passage. Before them, two rolling screens formed a silk
door, painted in a nightmare battlescape ripped from Hell. Behind it would be the shrine’s inner
sanctum, the court of a god.
He rolled them aside.
The chamber hummed with the somber quiet of a tomb. The shimenawa ropes swung gently
from a breeze Tadaka could not feel. Black motes hung thick in the sweltering musty air. Even Spike

997
gagged after a sniff. Yet it was not unlike the inner sanctum of the shrines back home. In fact, the
eerie familiarity was like stumbling into a childhood memory, every minute of difference a violation.
Tsuki paled in the phosphorescent glow of the chamber. “If this is the Temple of the Ninth,”
she uttered, “then this must be where the… the offerings…”
She didn’t finish.
In each of the six corners sat a white urn. Behind the closest, a broken suit of scaled armor
of ancient make, a design that predated the Empire. Behind another, a tattered silk robe, white cranes
spotted with black mold, folded neatly on a stand. And so on. An artifact behind each urn, but no
offering bowl among them.
The rest of the room appeared like a general’s tent. Scrolls decorated the walls, taken from
centuries of intercepted Hiruma scouts. There were maps hastily scrawled on brittle leather. A keep
in surrounding marshlands. A village nestled in mountains. Other such places. They looked like
fragments of Rokugan…
There. At the center of the room, on a thin podium, a scroll sat on its stand. The case was
wrapped in black silk.
Tadaka approached, Tsuki shadowing him behind. This had to be what Yori spoke of. A
scroll containing the account. A scroll his ancestor had stolen.
With a shaking hand, he reached…
And pulled it away. What was he doing? Did he have any reason to trust Yori? The man was
Tainted. Obsessed. This could be one of the Cursed Scrolls of Isawa. It could be—
Tsuki tore off the scroll case’s cap and flung it aside.
Tadaka blinked at her determined expression. “What are you—”
“I am afraid too, Master Tadaka. I just want to go home. But how could I show my face to
our champion if we left our future on this slab?” She pressed the scroll case into his hands. “While
we shouldn’t commit evil in pursuit of it, knowledge is what will save the Empire. Not doubt, not
fear, not comforting stories, but the unadorned truth.”
Tadaka swallowed his shame. She was right. How could he even consider stopping now?
He removed the scroll and unfurled it.

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14th Day of the Month of Togashi, the Temple of the Ninth Kami, the Shadowlands

Isawa Tadaka blinked at the ancient paper. It was gibberish. Lines and symbols. Nothing more.
Asako Tsuki gasped. She unfurled it across the table. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Yori was
right,” she whispered. “This is Shosuro’s account, written in one of the Asako family cyphers… by
Lady Asako herself!” She pointed to a faded personal stamp in the corner. “This is her chop. I’ve
seen it back home, at the library!”
She traced her finger to two others. “And this is Kuni’s personal stamp. And this…” She
inhaled excitedly. “That is the seal of Togashi-no-Kami! This is a priceless artifact!”
So Yori had been genuine. If Tadaka had decided to turn the Tainted daimyō in, they never
would have found this. His head swam contemplating what could have happened instead.
Spike squinted her bulbous eyes at the paper, not quite getting Tsuki’s excitement. “What’s
it say?”
“It says that… well… hmm.” She bit her lip. “Perhaps I am reading it wrong, but I think it
says Shinsei’s plan was to buy time. Time for ‘Togashi’s Duel.’ Time for the next Day of Thunder.”
She frowned. “But the Day of Thunder already happened.”
A thump. Something stirred in a dark corner.
“But listen,” Tsuki continued, “Shosuro said that the elements would fall out of balance, and
a lost general will rise from death. That the Hantei will be slain by his own blood, and those he most
trusted would betray his legacy. The dragons will abandon the heartland, siblings will draw blades
against each other, and when it has all come to pass, the Ninth will return to claim his birthright.

999
 “But when the day is darkest, seven thunders will be reborn from the Great Clans. They will
decide the fate of a thousand years on the next Day of Thunder.” She trembled. “It’s a lost
prophecy…”
Tadaka pushed Tsuki just before the claws could tear out her throat.
A shamble of a human being stood before them. His arms, skeletal and crystalized, ended in
stone claws. His robes, tattered and moldy, bore the insignia of an Elemental Master. Stale motes
hung thick in the air around him, carrying the scent of decay. Where his eyes had once been, now
three glowing orbs blazed in rolling fire.
And as Tadaka grimly snapped his line of jade beads, freeing a handful of orbs, his eyes
lingered on the ancient man’s face. It was a face he knew from his dreams. It belonged to a man
he’d never met, but one who had shaped his very future and forged his destiny. A man who’d spoken
to him countless times before, ever since he first lit a stick of incense and pressed his hands together.
His lost ancestor. Isawa Akuma.
Except it wasn’t. The man’s face was a sculpture of regret, but his thin frame was worn away
by years of unnatural life, and the presence of kansen surrounded him like the stench of a corpse.
He spoke without opening his mouth. His voice rent the inside of Tadaka’s skull.
You should have listened to your master.
And finally, Tadaka understood.
“So,” he said. “You are the demon that stole my ancestor’s soul.”
Yours will be a suitable replacement for his.
This was the source of Akuma’s power, wasn’t it? The Oni Lord existed in two places at
once: his demonic form, and the body of the mortal that had surrendered his name.
You were born to be mine, Tadaka. That is why I led you here.
Asako Tsuki scrambled to the fallen scroll and hugged it to her chest. Horror painted her
features as she stared at the possessed dead man from behind Spike, who hissed loudly and glanced
frequently at the door. Tsuki’s fugue only broke when Tadaka removed the porcelain mask and
pressed it onto her face. She blinked and met his eyes.
The Tainted beings in this place would ignore her so long as she kept it on. That was, after
all, how they’d gotten this far. Then, Tadaka tucked the remaining jade beads into her collar. It was
enough for a week, perhaps.

1000
 “Go,” he commanded. “Both of you. Take the prophecy back. You must tell the Empire what
you’ve learned.” He nodded in the ratling’s direction. “I leave this to you, Spike. Protect her, and
get her back home.”
“She’ll live a long time. I promise.” She grabbed Tsuki’s sleeve. “Come on!”
But Tsuki was rooted to the spot, shaking her head, as if trying to wake herself. “I can’t leave
you. I can’t. Please, it’s too much.” She shuddered at Spike’s frenzied tugging, torn between her
promises.
Weak. She will never survive. Her bones will bleach in the sun.
“You can.” Tadaka smiled. “You will.”
Tsuki trembled. Just a librarian from some dusty corner. Just a victim of circumstance, one
who had stumbled into a dark corner of the world where she never should have been.
The hope of the Empire, cradled in her hands. It would not be an easy journey back. But she
could make it. She had to.
“We have to give everything,” Tadaka said. “That is the oath we took. We are the servants
of both mortals and gods. You give so others have a chance.”
The light returned to her eyes. “I’ll try.” She swallowed. Nodded. “My life, my soul, for the
Phoenix.”
Tadaka turned to his possessed ancestor and cast aside his sash, revealing his ruined face.
“For Rokugan.”
Spike yanked her away. Their feet echoed heavily throughout the temple. Tsuki didn’t look
back, even as Akuma raised his skeletal hands, and the stone collapsed behind her.

Near Cherry Blossom Snow Lake

Shiba Tsukune flicked black blood from her blade and cupped her throbbing eye. This wasn’t the
first time that pain had blossomed behind the eye soaked in the blood of angry ghosts. The first
sensation upon waking from nightmares was an icy stab in the right socket. And whenever an
argument nearby became emotional, the heat there would swell and make her dizzy, and she would
remember the endless battlescape and the undying combatants.
But now, the pressure was so great, she felt as though her eye would burst from her face.

1001
 It was the second wave that broke the line: dead-eyed samurai in Crab armor, shrugging off
arrows and blades, a trisected diamond painted onto their chests. Once known as “the Damned,”
now they were thralls beneath the control of Akuma no Oni. Goblins swept up behind them, dividing
the defenders and shattering their formations like porcelain. They would have crashed into the
command line, had O-Ushi not planted her samurai between them, grimly engaging an enemy that
no longer felt pain.
And now there was no strategy, no disciplined ranks, no carefully executed countermoves,
and no mindful eyes watching for orders. There was only the flash of claws and blades and blank
stares and the screams of the dying.
“You still there, Tsukune?”
Tsukune blinked her thoughts away. O-Ushi’s back still pressed into her own, the taller
woman lifting her massive warhammer up from the shattered body of its latest victim. The sounds
of battle still surrounded them, but their efforts had made a moment of respite, an eye in the storm
of fighting.
She exhaled slow, until she could think clearly. “I am.” She looked across the hewn goblins
and bone piles. “Should we reform the unit?”
“Not happening,” O-Ushi replied. “We’ve been separated too long. Now they’ll have to fend
for themselves. Battles eventually devolve into this.” She grinned over her shoulder and down at the
Phoenix Champion. “Not quite like what you’re used to, huh?”
That was an understatement. This was not at all like the orderly procession of duels that
she’d witnessed in her time among the Lion Clan, nor the bloodless capture and exchange of keeps
that marked the Shiba’s campaigns in her father’s time. Even skirmishes against bandits and the
swarms of angry ghosts at Cliffside Shrine had been more orderly. This was as close to chaos as
she’d ever seen. Did the Crab really fight their wars like this?
“The Phoenix are not prepared.” That is what you’d said, wasn’t it, Tadaka?
“We can’t do this alone,” Tsukune spoke. “Being divided is how we got here. We need to
form some kind of spearhead. Work together.”
“We’ve done our part,” O-Ushi remarked. “We can only hope we’ve drawn him out.”
Tsukune stiffened. Him. The one commanding the Shadowlands forces.
“Only one thing is going to win this battle now,” O-Ushi continued. “The death of—”
Her voice stopped. Tsukune felt her pull away.

1002
 And then a heavy hand slammed into Tsukune’s shoulder, sweeping her down and away
from two glossy insectoid pincers.
She rolled out from under a shelled bulk suspended on segmented legs. Curling onto her
knees, her breath left her as a raptorial appendage cleaved the shaft of O-Ushi’s hastily lifted
hammer, then smashed sideways into her face, sending her sprawling and the warhammer spinning
away.
The creature looked like two horse-sized helmet beetles had fused with a praying mantis the
size of a rickshaw. It was a scramble of insect legs and a glossy shell, with three glowing eyes
burning above a pair of gigantic pincers.
O-Ushi grappled with the pincers as they crushed her torso in a vice-like grip, her armor
splintering with the pressure. She grit her teeth as bladed mantis arms struck her shoulder plates,
again and again, tearing away cloth and iron with each strike, like axes against a tree. The strain
showed on her face as she tried to free herself from the pincers, but she could only halt their steady
crush.
Two elongated jaws jutted from the creature’s face like a bear trap. Abandoning the pincers,
O-Ushi just barely caught the jaws before they could clamp down on her head. Blood trickled from
between her fingers as a massive fang sliced into her hand. She glared defiantly into the creature’s
mouth.
A dozen human hands poured out. They grabbed at her face, tangled their fingers in her hair,
clawed at her eyes. She screamed.
The sword Ofushikai leapt into Tsukune’s hands. She slashed at the creature, again and
again. Steel resounded against black chitin, the sound of a blacksmith’s hammer against the anvil.
Nothing. Not even a scratch! Tsukune reeled back, the creature paying her absolutely no
attention at all.
She couldn’t hurt it. Ofushikai, blessed ancestral blade of her clan and home to generations
of Phoenix Clan Champions, did nothing to harm it. How was that possible?
“How do I kill it?” she shouted.
O-Ushi struggled against a rain of hands and claws. She shouted back, “Try jade! Between
the armor!”

1003
 Tsukune wrenched her jade prayer beads from around her wrist and wrapped them around
her sword’s hand guard. Carefully she aimed, finding a seam in the creature’s plated armor. With
all her strength, she drove it in.
It stopped only inches deep. Stuck. She wrenched with all she had, but the sword wouldn’t
budge.
“It’s not working!” she shouted.
O-Ushi jammed her elbow into the creature’s jaw and pointed at her discarded hammer.
Tsukune sprang for it, abandoning her sword. There was still time. It could break through
the shell, and then…
An insect leg whipped out, kicking her behind the knees. Another struck her in the stomach.
She jerked forward, air forced from her lungs.
Whatever O-Ushi’s cry, Tsukune could not hear it. Only the hammering of her heart in her
own head, her lungs desperately twisting as they tried to fill with air. She couldn’t breathe. The
world was spinning. She was falling. Falling.
And as O-Ushi’s blood trickled through the cracks of her splintering armor, and the vice-
like grip of the creature’s pincers slowly overcame her, Tsukune could only think of how Isawa
Tadaka, her former charge and Master of Earth, had been right all along. For all their expertise, for
all their knowledge and the gifts of the kami, despite their position as the Voice of Heaven and the
emissaries of gods, the Phoenix could do nothing about this enemy. They were helpless. Powerless.
Weak.
Just like you, Tsukune, who cannot even protect your charge, who cannot even protect your
friends. Tadaka is alone and your friends will die and the land will be swept in blood and it’s all
your fault. It should have been you who died and not your brother, and Tetsu should be Champion
instead of you, and if you had been better than this, if you had tried harder, none of this would
have—
Tsukune closed her eyes. “No. You don’t fool me, demon.”
Whatever spoke in her mind was silenced.
She opened her eyes. Before her, the shimmering image of a Phoenix Clan Champion,
gleaming in his gossamer armor, reached out his hand.
We are here. I am here. Find your strength again. Call for me.

1004
 Tsukune rose. Whatever doubt was once there, now it was gone. She turned to the demon
and reached out her hand, calling for Ofushikai.
It replied, cutting through the demon to rest in her grip.
A shower of ichor soaked the ground as the bisected demon collapsed around Hida O-Ushi.
The warrior fell onto her knees, then sideways onto the grass. She lay still.
Tsukune rushed to O-Ushi’s side. Blood trickled from her lips and through breaks in her
armor, her chest rising and falling slowly. But she was grinning, like someone had just told her a
bawdy joke.
“Not bad.”
“You’re hurt,” Tsukune said. “Don’t move. I’ll find a medic.”
O-Ushi gripped Tsukune’s sleeve, forcing herself to a sitting position. “No. Every moment
counts, now.” She pressed a finger of jade, her last one, into Tsukune’s hand. “Take this, and what’s
left in my warhammer over there. There’s some jade in the business end.”
Tsukune’s breath caught in her throat.
“If the big oni have appeared, it means that he’s here, somewhere on this battlefield. You
have to end this. Cut the head off the snake. His forces will fall apart.” She coughed, a red trickle
worming down her chin. “He shouldn’t be hard to find. He’ll be the spiked mountain with the
glowing eyes, the kaijū directing his underlings.”
Now that was a new word. Kaijū. Yet even without seeing the characters used to write it,
Tsukune somehow knew exactly what it meant. A giant legendary creature. A being from myth and
nightmare.
Akuma no Oni.
Tsukune hesitated. She wasn’t about to leave O-Ushi, injured and bleeding, vulnerable and
alone, on a battlefield.
O-Ushi rolled her eyes. “I’ve lived through worse than this, Tsukune. Don’t worry about
me.” Her chuckle broke into a cough. “Damn, you’re just like Shizuko was. Come on, you know
this is more important than any one of us.”
Tsukune closed her eyes. The injured woman’s gaze was too heavy to hold with the burden
now resting on her shoulders. “O-Ushi, I’m sorry. You’re injured because of me.”

1005
 A heavy hand rested on her shoulder. “Call me Yoritoko. And hold your head a little higher.
You just defeated an Armored Windblade Demon—a Kamakiri-zaka. That’s no small feat for a
beginner.”
“Beginner!?” Tsukune puffed out her cheeks. “I’m pretty sure we’re the same age.”
A passing medic found O-Ushi without trouble. He only had to follow her laughter.

Katsuo lifted the broken haft away from the goblin’s body. He was certain it was dead, but he struck
it a few more times to be sure. Of course, just because it was dead didn’t mean it wouldn’t stand up
again later. He’d confirmed that with his own eyes, and wished he hadn’t.
He frowned at the splintered remains of his spear. He’d need a new weapon if he was going
to stand any chance of seeing the end of this day.
Katsuo searched around him for any sign of the others. He was supposed to be the one
leading them, but he had no idea where he might find them. That thing, the horrible massive
mountain of spikes and teeth, had appeared so suddenly, its cold shadow sweeping over them, that
he barely remembered how the ground broke when it landed, crushing the Kaiu’s ballista beneath
it. But he did remember how it raised its clawed hands to the sky, and how the bodies of those felled
across the field slowly staggered to their feet. Within moments he was swept away, alone with new
enemies.
A part of him wanted to run away, to put this place far behind him. But the part that was in
control remembered the promise he’d made to Tomoko just a few days ago, the ruins of his village
all those months past, and the look on Shiro’s face as he died. Maybe there was nothing he could do
here now, with just a broken spear and no unit beside him. But he could not abandon the others. He
didn’t want anyone else to suffer what befell his home. He couldn’t stand by and allow it.
“You!”
Katsuo spun into the path of a towering man in Crab armor, a massive iron tetsubō held aside
in a one-handed grip. Although his insignia was hidden by mud and his armor splattered with red
and black, the man’s face and voice were burned deep into Katsuo’s memory, the same man who
had barked drills at him and the others for hours at a time. This was Hida Yakamo, the one Crab
he’d hoped never to see again after today.

1006
 Yakamo glanced at the bodies around him. Fallen samurai and goblins, some still gripping
their weapons. In this slight depression in the ground, they were temporarily sheltered from the
battle. “You’re that farmer boy who volunteered. Where is your unit?”
Katsuo found his voice with some difficulty. “I was separated. This gigantic monster broke
us up. Raised the dead, used them like puppets—”
Yakamo seemed lit from within. “Where?” he demanded. “Where did it go? Which way?”
Katsuo gestured with his broken spear.
The massive Hida seemed to consider this. The sounds of battle drew closer, and above the
lip of the hill, Katsuo saw a few samurai in blue armor engaging with a rabble of goblins. He became
suddenly aware of how exposed both he and Yakamo were in this moment.
The memory of his lost village came to him again. Shiro’s dead stare.
“Hida-sama,” he uttered, “Was that creature responsible for what happened to my home?”
Yakamo studied Katsuo’s features. “I cannot say for certain. But perhaps. Do you want your
chance to avenge them, boy?”
His fists gripped the broken haft. He nodded.
Shouts from atop the hill. The clashing of steel. The skirmish poured over the side, goblins
locked with outnumbered samurai.
“Then follow me,” Yakamo said. A meaty backhand knocked the spear haft out of Katsuo’s
hand. It happened so suddenly, the boy could only blink at his empty hands. “That won’t do. Take
this.” The Hida wrenched a katana from the body of a fallen samurai, then tossed it into Katsuo’s
stunned grip.
Katsuo stared at the sheathed sword with open horror and awe. He’d never held a katana
before. It was heavier than he’d expected, although no more so than the farming implements he’d
used back home. His fingers curled around a handle wrapped in cured manta ray leather.
Over the hilltop, another samurai emerged, blood staining the mane of her armored helm.
Her right arm hung limply from her side; although she held a blade in the other, Katsuo could see
that she was injured. He froze in her vision, watching as her surprise was overtaken by the curled
lips of anger.
“Yakamo!” she shouted, pointing at Katsuo. “Did you just give that farmer a katana?!”
He nearly dropped the sword right there.

1007
 The woman marched down the hill. “That is a violation of Imperial edict! I could cut him
down for that. I could cut you both down!”
Yakamo sneered. “By all means, Tsuko. Perhaps the next Emperor will thank you when these
fields are overrun with goblins!”
The woman cursed, regarding Katsuo with open distain. “Look at him! He cannot even hold
it properly. He’s frozen with fear. He’ll be a greater danger to others than—”
“I’m not afraid,” Katsuo said.
The woman—a Lion samurai, Katsuo now realized—seemed taken aback for a moment.
The memory came again, fresh. His dead friend. The Lost, on horseback, with their menacing
blades. His hands balled into fists around the sword.
“I’m not afraid!” he shouted. “And I can fight them, just like you can!”
Matsu Tsuko crossed the gap in an instant. Her sword flashed a bright arc.
Katsuo flinched, shucking the sheath from his clutched blade in a panicked frenzy. Pure
instinct brought the sword between them.
His gritted teeth rattled as her blade clashed against his. The jolt shook through his shoulder
and down his arm. He buckled with the force and fell to one knee. He blinked at a razor edge
suspended inches from his face. Had he been only a moment slower…
But just beyond their locked steel, Tsuko’s expression was… amusement? Surprise? It was
hard to tell. She seemed only to express herself through her eyes, as if her own face was a mask to
hide her thoughts.
Yakamo barked a laugh. “Ha! Did you see that? He’s a natural.”
“He dropped his form instantly,” she replied.
“He’s a natural,” Yakamo insisted. “And we must start somewhere. Everyone is scattered.
We need to form a unit and find the enemy general. They’ll rally around us if they see us fighting
together.”
She stepped back, regarding Katsuo with new eyes. Only now did he see the blood staining
her right shoulder, and how she tucked her arm close to her torso. Perhaps she would have
overpowered him if she hadn’t been injured.
She cursed and sheathed her sword. “Fine.”
She was upon him before he realized she’d moved. Gripping him by the wrist, moving one
hand closer to the sword’s guard, the other to the bottom of the handle. Her feet kicked his knees,

1008
forcing his legs wider, his stance lower. “This hand here. That hand there. Lead with this hand, the
other supports. Strikes start at the belly.” She slapped his stomach, and he winced. “Not the
shoulders. And stay even on both feet, or else you’ll trip. Do not overexert yourself: let the sword
do the cutting for you.” She frowned. “Don’t make me regret this.”
Katsuo focused on the sensations in his muscles, his grip. He needed to remember them.
Yakamo glanced over his shoulder at them. “What does Akodo’s Leadership say about
impromptu vanguards?”
“Never form one from exhausted soldiers. They’re too tired to be effective; you’d just be
throwing their lives away.”
He grunted. “You tired?”
Tsuko knelt and lifted a fallen banner with her good arm. “No.”
“Good. We’ll start with us three and build from there.” He looked at Katsuo. “She cannot
fight while wielding that banner, so make sure you watch her back.”
The Matsu samurai didn’t seem especially thrilled to have her life entrusted to a farmer
wielding a sword for the first time. But she did not protest.
Katsuo looked up at the torn banner. Only the top remained, a single character fluttering on
the surface. But he couldn’t read it; he was illiterate. “What does it mean?”
Tsuko glanced at the banner, then back. “That is katsu.”
He repeated the word. “Katsu.” To prevail. Victory.
“Yeah, Katsu.” Yakamo smacked the farmer on the back. “It’s in your name, Katsuo.”
Somewhere, out there, was his enemy. His hands tightened around the sword.
“Yes,” he agreed. “It is.”

Ignoring the sharp ache of his joints and the pain in his leg, Yoritomo braced for the next wave of
goblins. Nothing. The rabble backed away from the pinch point he’d created in the pass, the bodies
of the first three waves enough to discourage them from another attempt. Still, he didn’t lower his
guard, not even to wipe away a bead of sweat. These opponents proved every bit as capricious as
the seas, but so far, not a single goblin had made it through.
And to think, Hida Sukune was going to waste an entire unit on this task!

1009
 The flesh on the back of his neck goosepimpled, and Yoritomo trusted the instinct, spinning
out of the path of an arrow arcing behind him. The missile whizzed past and sunk into the back of a
retreating goblin, sending the others splashing away and through the swamp.
Yoritomo turned toward the newcomers: mounted samurai in blue and white armor, the flags
protruding from their backs displaying a crane with a spear in its talons. Samurai of the Daidoji
family. And the man lowering his bow at their lead, face hidden by his mempō, could only be the
Daidoji daimyō himself.
Daidoji Uji. Yoritomo knew the man by reputation alone, but he had not expected to see him
here. Weren’t the Crane too absorbed in their northern affairs to pay the Crab any mind?
The daimyō’s voice was as cold as his eyes. “Hida Sukune mentioned you were holding this
pass by yourself. Allow the Iron Cranes to give the Son of Storms some respite.”
No introduction. And the other Crane warriors had not put away their bows.
Yoritomo kept his eyes on them. The hairs on his neck had not settled. “So you’ve come to
help? Why then do I have the impression that arrow was meant for me?”
Uji dismounted. Neither of the accompanying Cranes looked away as he placed a hand on
the foreign-style blade hanging from his side. Not a bad choice; Yoritomo had one like it at home.
It was designed to catch short blades in the action of a parry. Chosen, no doubt, for this exact
encounter.
If something happened to Yoritomo here, if he fell defending this pass, that would certainly
suit the Crane. After all, hadn’t the Crane discovered the Mantis’s piracy only a few seasons ago?
Hadn’t one of Yoritomo’s own captains attempted to seize the Keep of White Sails in recent
memory? Had he not, just a year ago, shown up the Crane at their own Winter Court?
And now here he was, alone, during a pitched battle, with no one from his own clan to
witness. If something other than goblins killed him, well, that could never be proven, could it?
Yoritomo couldn’t help but smirk. He almost respected Uji for having the guts to consider
this.
A loud splash. Then another. Uji froze, then fell into a stance, drawing his blade. Yoritomo
spun to face the sounds of scrambling feet and screeching battle cries. The goblins had found their
nerve again. And their slings, it seemed.

1010
 Yoritomo ducked as a hurled stone cleaved through two bamboo trees, planting himself just
before the pinch point of the pass. His first strike claimed the head of the foremost goblin. Daidoji
Uji’s blade claimed the second. Arrows fell from bows of the Iron Cranes behind them.
And then the wave crashed into them. The Son of Storms cleaved his way through the tide
of goblins.
As his kama tore through breaks in goblin armor, Yoritomo kept an eye on Uji’s movements.
The man fought opposite of him, efficiently and cleanly, drawing weapons from folds in his armor
and abandoning them for new. Tiny daggers. Throwing knives. Chains. Now here was a Crane
worthy of study. Here was a real threat.
He wrenched his head back from a goblin speartip. That one had come too close. He couldn’t
divide his attention between both Uji and the goblins, but neither could he lose track of the Daidoji.
If he couldn’t be sure that the Crane wouldn’t stick a dagger in him if he left his back exposed, then
he couldn’t bring his style or full strength to bear.
But then, Uji was keeping him at arm’s length too. No openings. Never looking away. And
it was costing him. The goblins piled in faster than they fell.
“Surely you don’t mean to lend your aid from back there! Have you no trust for a warrior
who fights by your side?”
Uji’s eyes narrowed above his mask. “Indeed, Son of Storms. No trust for a dog that bites
the hand which feeds him. No trust for an opportunistic lord of rogue sailors.”
A goblin darted into Yoritomo’s reach, swinging a stone. He kicked it away, taking his eyes
off Uji for only a moment to finish the creature. He caught another blade and glanced. The daimyō
was too busy to capitalize on the moment.
“My people were divided before my father gave them purpose,” Yoritomo said as he fought
back. “Now our star rises. Without the benefit of inherited titles and empty promises—using only
our own sweat and resolve—we built a kingdom to rival that of a Great Clan.”
“Indeed. But also with Crane gold.” Uji crushed a goblin skull with a bash of his helm. “The
only reason your ‘clan’ even exists is because Doji advisors suggested mercy in the wake of your
ancestor’s treachery. The only reason Kyūden Gotei stands is because Daidoji coffers opened for
mercenaries during a time of mutual need. And when that time passed, and the Crane could stand
on their own again, did the Mantis remember the benevolence and generosity of Doji’s scions, which

1011
allowed them the dignity of a day without starvation?” He kicked the last goblin away and cast the
Son of Storms in his hot glare. “Or did they resort to petty theft, like ungrateful spoiled children?”
There! Yoritomo spun, hurling a kama in an arc toward Uji’s throat. “The Mantis clashed as
warriors fighting another clan’s wars!”
Uji’s eyes widened as the kama left a deep slash and kept spinning. Red splashed across his
mask.
And the goblin sneaking behind him fell dead at his feet.
Yoritomo lunged to pick up the thrown kama as he swept upward with the one he still held,
catching another blade. The movement exposed his unarmored flank to Uji’s daggers. He grit his
teeth. The daimyō would not get a better opening.
Yet another goblin charged, screaming, spear aimed at Yoritomo’s belly. Doom loomed over
him as he realized he wouldn’t be fast enough to pull away.
Uji sprung into the spear’s path. The tip scraped across Yoritomo's thigh, cutting through
the silk, before the blades on his forearm found purchase in the wooden shaft. He spun, wrenching
it from the goblin’s grasp. Yoritomo switched hands on his kama and unfurled his arms, disarming
and then beheading his own opponent before slaying the goblin facing Uji.
They pressed their backs together. Their blades wove a web of steel around them, back-to-
back, side by side. Arrows from the Iron Cranes fell around them. They spun, Uji making openings,
Yoritomo carving through. They danced together in a red net of death.
Until the final goblin was dead at Yoritomo’s feet.
His chest heaved with rolling breaths. Uji fell to one knee, blood running freely down his
side. The spear had injured him worse than first appearances, it seemed. He looked up at the Son of
Storms, and their gaze met. He seemed to be considering something, new light in his eyes.
Yoritomo extended his hand. “We are a part of the Empire too, Uji-san, whether that is
convenient for the Great Clans or not.”
“So you say,” Uji replied. “But deeds, not words, will matter in the end.”
At first, he believed the Daidoji was refusing help, attempting to stand on his own power.
But then he felt something pressed into his offered hand, something the Crane had drawn from
beneath his collar.
A small turtle shell. Judging from the scent, it was carved from a piece of agarwood.

1012
 “No one will be able to get close to the Oni Lord,” Uji said. “Anyone who does may as well
commit themselves to death. They will be crushed or torn apart long before they can even touch the
thing with weapons.” He gestured to the shell. “But that tsangusuri will deflect the first fatal blow
struck against you, no matter how strong, no matter the source. It will destroy the token instead. The
Asahina meant for me to use it to confront the Oni Lord. But that seems doubtful now.”
Yoritomo frowned. “And you intend for me to face him instead?”
“You say you are a part of the Empire, Son of Storms.” Uji hardened his eyes. “Prove it.”

Bayushi Yojiro caught Yogo Kikuyo’s disapproving look just before she turned her head away. He
knew she disagreed with what he felt had to be done, but it was his place alone to decide this course
of action. He did not require the approval of the Black Watch, merely their cooperation. And while
he had not planned on being transported across the Empire, at least he could make the most of this
turn of fortune.
The Crab Clan escort said nothing as they approached the command line together. Yojiro
took quiet stock of them: Hida Sukune rapidly gesturing to a map on the table, representatives of
multiple clans gathered around him. Only the imposing form of Togashi Yokuni—at least, that was
who Yojiro assumed the giant in green-and-gold armor to be—seemed to notice his approach and
that of the other Scorpion.
A Crab scout seemed to be reporting to his general. “There have been many sightings, but
no trail we can follow. It seems he is here, but we are unable to locate him at this time.”
Sukune shook his head. “How? The Oni Lord is gigantic. Even with the chaos of battle, he
should be easy to spot.”
Yojiro steadied himself with a breath. It was now or never. “That is because he can conceal
himself.”
At once he felt every questioning gaze and the weight of the silence.
He continued, “More accurately, he can muddle the mind. The Oni Lord is capable of
confusing the senses, forcing you to overlook him. That may account for the brief sightings, Hida-
sama.”
The Crane representative crossed his arms. “I suppose if anyone is to know about the nature
of this creature, it would be the champion of the clan that summoned it.”

1013
 Yojiro clenched his jaw against a retort. Every instinct, every fiber of his being, urged him
to refute the claim. Yojiro could prove that Shoju had not actually called Akuma no Oni from beyond
the Wall. The part of him dedicated to law and truth begged him to cast it down.
But he couldn’t. Not knowing what he did.
Not now that he was the Master of Secrets.
All his life, Yojiro’s peers had called him “The Honest Scorpion,” a title parroted by those
of the other clans, who thought they were speaking to his favor. They couldn’t have known that it
was a grave insult, a mark that he could not be trusted within the clan. The most ironic of
compliments. Yet he had embraced this title, finding a way to serve both his own sensibilities and
the needs of his clan. He’d done everything that was ever asked of him.
And now he knew a secret that could fracture the Empire if it were ever spoken. The first
secret a new Scorpion Clan Champion learned was always a terrible burden. At last, Yojiro knew
what it truly meant to be the Master of Secrets. It was not a title, but a curse.
Very well, Shoju. I will play the part. He chose his words carefully. They would all be true,
if only technically.
“The former Scorpion Champion told me nothing of the nature of Akuma no Oni. What I
share comes from the precious knowledge of the Yogo family, who have long studied the nature of
the known Oni Lords. I bring it to you from the smoldering ruins of Yogo Castle, destroyed as it
was by the forces of the Shadowlands.”
Shocked looks exchanged above the war map. The color drained from Hida Sukune’s face.
Perhaps he believed such a thing, if true, was connected to Akuma’s plans. Perhaps it was. Yojiro
had no way of knowing.
“It is clear that Bayushi Shoju brought ruin to my family and my clan. The Scorpion disavow
him. The Yogo came here with the hope that they might lend their aid to the defense of the Empire,
as their ancestor did in the first War against the Ninth Kami. They hope to win the Crab’s aid in
reclaiming their homelands. To this end, I offer something that may be of use.”
With both hands, he offered the jitte he’d recovered just this morning. Shadow covered the
silver and jade of the rod, but not the gold of the scorpion-tail prong or the blood-red cord of the
handle. “This is the Yogo Jitte, awakened by the revered magistrate Soshi Saibankan himself.
Among its many qualities is the ability to reveal the lies of the Shadowlands. Bring this close to
Akuma no Oni, and it will be forced to reveal itself. It will not be able to hide from justice.”

1014
 Silence, long and heavy. Yojiro’s heart quickened, and he considered the possibility that
Shoju had done more to damage the clan than anticipated. If any of the Great Clans rejected him, he
might never have a chance to restore the reputation of the Scorpion.
The reverberating voice of Togashi Yokuni broke the silence. “So long as the Shadowlands
have a foothold at Yogo Castle, the entire Empire is imperiled. Some may not trust that this was not
part of Shoju’s plan. Some may not trust the gift you are offering.” He extended an accepting hand.
For a moment, Yojiro could almost swear that the tattoos across the Dragon Champion’s arms had
moved by themselves. “But perhaps a demonstration of the Scorpion’s sincerity would be enough
to convince them. Allow the Dragon Clan to help you, Champion Bayushi—the one they call
‘honest’—and I will accept your gift on their behalf.”
Yojiro hadn’t told them of his new title, nor had he anticipated the Dragon Champion’s
involvement. He’d come to them unarmed and unarmored. He had revealed a weakness in the heart
of his clan—over the protests of the leaderless Yogo—and offered one of the family’s most ancient
artifacts. What more could he possibly do to convince them that this was not a misdirection, that his
entire clan was not in league with the Oni Lord?
Perhaps the Dragon Champion could read his thoughts, for he seemed to reply to them. “My
offer is thus: Let the Dragon Clan be a neutral party to vouch for the sincerity of the Scorpion Clan
until such a time as trust can be restored. Togashi and Kitsuki advisors shall keep watch over the
affairs of the Scorpion so that they can prove that they have nothing to hide. Our fates shall be bound
together, and I will ensure that the Dragon Clan Champions that follow me shall honor this
agreement.”
He did not need the alarmed glare of Yogo Kikuyo to tell him the consequences, should he
agree. Everything the Scorpion did hereafter would reflect on the Dragon’s reputation as well as
their own. And so every public proclamation, every deed they undertook, would require that the
Scorpion consider the Dragon reaction, no matter how inscrutable the other clan may be. It meant
Dragons in every Scorpion court. It meant all their secrets, all their weaknesses, would pass beneath
the Dragon’s watchful eyes. It could mean years or even a generation of enforced humility.
Which wasn’t the clan’s strong suit, of late. It would mean his kin would hate him, but then
again, they always had. They didn’t need to love their champion to do their duty.
But perhaps, with the Dragon’s help, we can recover the Yogo lands. This agreement will
prove we are meek. And the clan will live on.

1015
So be it. He did not know how deep those waters ran. But he could swim.
Yojiro bowed low as the Dragon Champion accepted the jitte.

1016
14th Day of the Month of Togashi, Near Cherry Blossom Snow Lake

Despite the deluge of cold rain, Yoritomo caught Hida Yakamo’s hot glare. The Crab probably
believed that the Son of Storms abandoned his post. Was there even time to explain?
Yakamo looked like he’d been chewed up, swallowed, and had fought his way back up the
throat. He had formed a ragtag band and pushed into the apex of the fighting. Even now they repelled
waves of goblin horrors. The band’s members were mostly Crab, but a few others had answered the
rallying cry. Like the Matsu daimyō, apparently, who carried a banner instead of her weaponry, one
arm shedding a steady crimson river.
Oh, and there’s Katsuo. Even hammering at the frame of what was once a ballista, the boy
looked more like a samurai now than he had the previous day.
“Uji and his Iron Cranes are holding the pass,” Yoritomo said. His eyes settled on a massive
ballista bolt nearby, decorated with paper wards and tipped with jade. “You plan to use that on the
Oni Lord?”
“If we can get this ballista repaired,” said Yakamo. “The Kaiu engineers spent the week
constructing these and hiding them in the field. They got some use before goblins got to them. This
is the only one left that isn’t a pile of splinters.”
Katsuo crawled across the sundered ballista with the expertise of a carpenter. “Give me time.
I’ll get it working again.”
Yakamo might have replied, but instead he noticed the arrival of a disheveled Shiba
Tsukune. His eyes went straight to the jade amulet around her neck, and then widened in alarm.

1017
 “What happened to her?” he demanded. “Where is O-Ushi?”
“She’s with the medics,” Tsukune assured him. “She’s safe. She told me to find Akuma no
Oni. That if we slew him, his army would fall apart.”
Yakamo nodded, although concern for his sister’s fate never left his face. “The oni spawn
are coming from here. We’ve been beating back waves for some time. He must be nearby.”
Yoritomo pointedly cast about the battlefield around him. “Impressive that something so big
can hide. Perhaps he is invisible, like a camouflaged octopus.”
“Correct.” They turned toward the unnaturally deep voice. No one had seen Togashi Yokuni
arrive. From his belt, he drew an ancient jitte. “Or, perhaps I should say, he was.”
At once, Yoritomo stood in a shadow.
Perhaps a bow’s range away, a mountain of rusty iron flesh rose from the sea of nightmares.
He stood taller than the mast of the Bitter Wind, his mouth large enough to swallow an ox whole.
Three serpentine tongues flicked acid beneath the three flaming orbs that were his eyes, orbs that
seemed to blur together as Yoritomo stared into them, a diamond-shaped flare that scorched his
mind.
Tsukune cried out, falling to one knee. She clutched her purple eye, jaw clenched in anguish.
Glowing liquid dripped between her fingers. “I-invoking… kansen…” she gasped.
Yokuni lunged in front the ballista, shoving Yakamo aside. He slammed his hands against
the earth. For a moment, his dragon tattoos writhed, and his hands glowed against the grass.
A loud crack split the air. Jagged stone burst around the ruined ballista, accompanied by
disembodied screams. Yoritomo’s teeth rattled as a shockwave rippled through him. Yokuni
wrenched violently, as if something had struck him in the stomach. Then he crumpled to hands and
knees, drained from deflecting the oni’s sorcery.
The Oni Lord pressed himself flat against the ground, his clawed hands clamped into the
soil. With a gesture, a wave of spawn poured from the earth, a screaming mass of eyes and claws.
Matsu Tsuko raised the banner. “Rally here! Protect the ballista!”
“You heard the Lady of Lions!” Yakamo bellowed, as defenders formed a shell around the
weapon.
Katsuo’s hammering increased its tempo. Tsukune forced herself to her feet and drew her
weapon. Yoritomo braced himself as the wave of monsters crashed into them.

1018
 Yokuni leapt and scooped up the discarded ballista bolt. Spinning it like an oversized spear,
he battered oni spawn on each side, sending them sprawling to be finished by the others. Tsukune
rushed to guard his back, her movements falling naturally in tandem with his, a samurai trained to
fight beside mystics and shugenja. Black blood sprayed arcs in the rain.
Beyond, the Oni Lord rose. Long steps brought him toward the ballista. Panic briefly washed
over Yakamo’s features. Oni spawn were one thing, but could they keep Akuma no Oni himself
from simply smashing the only weapon that could seriously harm him?
Yoritomo remembered the briefing from the previous days. Akuma no Oni was given the
name of Isawa Akuma, the Master of Earth. It was what made him so formidable. But perhaps he’d
inherited other things from Isawa Akuma. His hubris, perhaps? His pride?
He was only a few hundred yards away, now. He was closing in.
I can’t believe I’m about to do this.
Yoritomo dashed out, away from the mass. “So this is Akuma no Oni,” he shouted, “with a
face even a mother would drown.”
The creature paused. Tilted his head.
“It is a great honor,” Yoritomo continued, “to finally meet the least powerful of the Oni
Lords.”
The massive creature jerked in his direction. Did his eyes burn a little brighter? Did his
tongues writhe just a little more menacingly?
Good. Look this way. Yoritomo held his arms to his sides. “After all, a powerful Oni Lord
would have gone straight for Otosan Uchi when they had the chance. I’ve heard there are
Shadowlands creatures crawling at the bottom of the seas. Why not simply travel up through the
ocean and attack the capital directly from the Golden Sun Bay?” He shrugged. “But then, I suppose
you did the best that a coward could do.”
The ground shook with the monster’s steps. Yoritomo glanced back at the others; Katsuo
tested the mechanism as three Crab soldiers loaded the bolt. No sign of Yokuni, and he couldn’t
track the others through the goblin mass. Keep him busy.
Akuma’s jaws dripped high above the Son of Storms’ head. Yoritomo looked up into his
enraged eyes without flinching. “All my life I have sought a worthy challenge.” He shook his head.
“How disappointing that instead, here I find you.”

1019
 The creature slung his massive fist into the ground where Yoritomo stood. The Son of Storms
barely rolled away, his kama flashing. He ducked beneath the follow-up strike, then leaped back
from a shower of acid. Chemical steam burned his nostrils and eyes. The Oni Lord leaped over him
like a cat, hammering another cratering punch into the earth.
But now Togashi Yokuni stood beneath his boulder-like fist, hands pressed against the
creature’s knuckles, his muscles straining beneath the strength of the demon. The creature tried to
yank his hand back, but Yokuni grasped him, held him fast.
His chance. Yoritomo scrambled up the creature’s arm and onto his back. With a swing, he
dug both of his kama into the creature’s flesh. He let his weight drag him down and around Akuma’s
flank, tearing a path like a sail. He dragged the blade across the creature’s thigh and into the tendons
behind the knee, cutting through and rolling to the earth.
He crumpled to one knee, the other leg ruined. The creature screamed in pain, showering
acid from his mouth. Yokuni ignored the sting as Akuma shrieked and jabbed at him with clawed
hands, digging trenches in the soil. Yokuni sidestepped and brushed them aside, until finally he
stomped a foot onto the creature’s clawed hand, pinning him.
A loud crack. The ballista fired.
Akuma roared as the massive bolt sunk into his side. A chorus of cheers arose from the
ballista, Katsuo holding his hammer up high.
As the creature crashed onto his side, Yoritomo crossed his kama. Honored ancestor Osano-
wo, are you watching? Your descendent begs for your aid! Please give me the strength—
Lightning traced an arc into the ballista bolt. Akuma shrieked as a god’s fire traced through
his body. He collapsed onto his hands, smoke pouring from burns across his flesh.
Yoritomo stared, stunned, as ozone traced his nostrils. The entire battlefield seemed to slow
down, to pause, as thunder echoed through the heavens. He’d hoped that the Fortune of Fire and
Thunder had been listening. But he never dreamed that the Fortune would answer.
Was that you, Honored Ancestor? Was that a sign of your blessing? Are you telling me that
I am destined to fell this creature, that I am—
The Oni Lord wrenched the bolt from his side and reared back to hurl it toward the Son of
Storms.
Yoritomo tensed, ready to throw himself aside. The creature would make another opening,
and he would capitalize, once more running up the arm and…

1020
 Akuma was not looking at him. His gaze was above his shoulder. As Yoritomo followed it,
he realized the Akuma wasn’t targeting him, but the defenders gathered around the ballista. He saw
Tsukune’s eyes widen as she froze in place. He saw the peasant, Katsuo, as the color drained from
his face. He saw Yakamo pushing Tsuko down to avoid the trajectory, directly in its path. There
was no way any of them could avoid it.
The only thing in the way was himself.
Just as Uji had thrown himself in the way of the goblin’s spear meant for him. Deeds, not
words, will matter in the end.
Yoritomo nodded. He’d had a good run, up to now.
He hurled himself in front of the bolt. It tore through his armor, lifting him off his feet,
sinking into his chest.
He struck the ground and was still.

The Oni Lord pounced to tear Yoritomo’s limp body to ribbons. But Yokuni held him fast, arms
wrapped around his ruined leg. Akuma roared in frustration and spun, snapping at Yokuni as he
jumped back, spinning. He diverted the Oni Lord’s attacks, again and again, as goblins rushed to
claim the Son of Storms’ body. He sprung onto Akuma’s shoulder, then leaped to intercede.
Akuma snatched him from the air and smashed him into the ground.
Yokuni heard a snap as his chest buckled under the crushing weight of the demon’s hand.
For a moment, his vision blurred, and the burning-orb eyes of the Oni Lord spun beneath his
victorious grin.
For a moment.
Then Yokuni grasped the Oni Lord’s arm with both his hands. The dragons on his arms,
brilliant jade tattoos, writhed down his limbs, over his hands, and into the very flesh of Akuma no
Oni.
The Oni Lord screamed as his flesh calcified, growing brittle, blackening, as if burned from
within. It fell away like dried mud, and beneath his screams, a human voice begged for the pain to
stop.
Yokuni could not hear it. He couldn’t hear anything at all. Just his own heart, beating steady,
as it always had. One beat after another, just as one thought had preceded this one. In the same way

1021
that one could not recall their first thought, there was no such thing as beginning or end. Such was
the blessing of the Order’s teachings.
I have done everything you asked of me, Lord Togashi, except one. I regret that I could not
prepare Mitsu for this burden. May he forgive me.
He exhaled, resting his head against the grass, as the Oni Lord crumbled around him.
This was a good life. May I remember its lessons in the next one. When I find my way once
more to the High House of Light, as I have countless times since the dawn of the Order, may this
world be more peaceful than when I left it.
The Dragon Clan Champion closed his eyes and did not open them again.

Tsuko was the first by the unmoving body of the Son of Storms, swatting at the encroaching oni
spawn with her banner. Then came the others, forcing the goblin warriors back with spears and
blades.
“He died to spare us,” Tsuko said. “Perhaps he had a noble spirit after all.”
Yoritomo’s chest heaved as the bolt fell away. “Perhaps,” he whispered.
Tsuko raised her voice. “He lives!”
Yakamo stared incredulously. “How?!”
The Son of Storms tried to move his leg. He couldn’t feel it. Yet there was no pain. Just the
groggy sense that he’d fallen a great distance and lost a few moments of time. And then came the
sound of a horn, something distantly familiar, and a new wave of cheers arose from the samurai
around him. He heard the thundering of hooves and the clashing of blades, and then they crossed
his sight. Cavalry. And they were not fleeing from the sight of goblins, which meant they were not
normal steeds.
They were outriders of the Unicorn Clan.
Their arrival seemed to bolster the spirit of the fighting troops. With restored energy, they
fought anew. The Unicorn galloped across the battlefields, joining the fray.
A grinning warrior with the heraldry of the Moto brought his steed to a stop. Yoritomo’s
dazed eyes lingered on the man’s scarred cheek, and the brittle horn attached to his helmet. “You’re
the biggest one here; you must be Hida Yakamo!” he barked. “Feel honored! Shono gives his
regards.”

1022
 Yakamo blinked away his brief confusion. If he knew the Moto, he didn’t return the
familiarity. “The Crab welcome anyone who would fight beside us.” He gestured to the Son of
Storms. “This man is injured. Can you ride him back to the command line?”
As they spoke, Yoritomo drew a trinket from his sleeve. Once agarwood carved to look like
a turtle shell, it was now broken.
He smiled wryly at himself. “I can’t believe I owe my life to a Crane.”

The monster Akuma no Oni filled Katsuo’s vision. He could not pull away, not even to regard the
battle still raging nearby, separating him from the others. The flaming orbs that had been the
creature’s three eyes now smoldered, rapidly greying like dying coals. The monster hunched onto
his arms and legs, acid pouring from his razor-filled mouth.
He vomited. Wet chunks splattered out. He lurched, over and over, each spasm seeming to
drain the creature of color, expelling another misshapen glistening cluster.
They were bodies. Misshapen flesh fell from his open maw, splatting against headless torsos
and twitching limbs. The impact of their fall merged them into a glistening mound, like wet clay.
And two arms unfolded from that quivering mass. Clawed hands gripped the earth. The grass
itself seemed drawn up those arms, sheathing the flesh. The grass blackened, stiffened, becoming
fur, spines, armor. Three orbs ignited between them.
He was reforming, wasn’t he? Remaking himself, abandoning the shell that the Dragon
Champion had sundered.
Katsuo’s mouth was dry. His sword felt as though it weighed a hundred bushels.
Why did I think I could do this? This thing cannot be killed. We’re all going to die here.
We’re—
A woman’s soft voice. “I didn’t get your name.”
Katsuo jumped at Tsukune’s words. He hadn’t realized she was standing right beside him.
The woman’s eye glowed like a purple lantern, and a thick iridescent tear-streak now thickly painted
its way down her face, a brushstroke of melted pearl.
She seemed calm. Almost quizzical. How could she be so calm at a time like this?
She turned slightly, and after a moment, lowered into a bow. “I am Shiba Tsukune of the
Phoenix Clan.”

1023
 Katsuo swallowed. He returned the gesture, lower. “I am Katsuo, of…” Of what, exactly?
His village? Should he say that? “…Of Kurosunai village.”
Tsukune made a face.
Had he made a mistake? “I mean, just Katsuo,” he spat out.
Tsukune nodded. She spoke calmly, distantly. “The Dragon Champion gave his life to make
him vulnerable. He gave us this chance.”
“How do you know that?”
Tsukune’s hand hovered before her glowing eye. “I can see him. The Realm of Slaughter is
telling me to slay the Oni Lord in battle, to send him into Tōshigoku’s embrace, where he cannot
escape.”
Katsuo trembled. “How are we supposed to do that?”
Her brow furrowed. Did she not even know? Did she not have a plan, or something?
“I don’t think I can do this,” he confessed. “I thought maybe I could, but what could I even
hope to do against something this, this…much?” He knew that he was losing control, but he couldn't
help that a dam had broken inside him. “That thing killed, or should have killed, two clan champions!
Even struck by lightning, he kept going! I don't have magic tattoos or an enchanted weapon.” Katsuo
shook his head. “I'm just a farmer. I—”
He trembled. What more could he say?
“You feel like you shouldn’t be here,” said Tsukune. “Like it was a mistake. I remember
what that felt like.”
Katsuo paused. Was that true? The Phoenix Champion once felt the same way?
“There were far better candidates,” Tsukune spoke. “And some who came before me, I’ll
never live up to.” She laid a hand on her sword. “But Ofushikai, it chose me. I still don’t know why.
I don’t think I ever will.
“But maybe I don’t need to know. Maybe my role isn’t to question, but to use this gift to
help as many as I can. To lift them up. To save the things we love.”
Katsuo closed his eyes. His tiny piece of farm. Takuhiro’s happy dog face, barking.
Tomoko’s smile.
The things we love.

1024
 Tsukune gave him an affirming nod. “I think you do have a power. I think everything you’ve
been though has led you right here. And I think you are exactly where you are supposed to be,
Katsuo of Kurosunai Village, the man whose name means ‘victory.’”
How strange. There was no doubt anymore. Akuma no Oni had shed his husk, and now a
new glistening body, sleek and spined, reared up and unleashed a vile roar. Yet, Katsuo knew what
he had to do. Was this what it was like to be samurai?
“Will you fight with me?” Tsukune asked.
He raised his sword. “I’ll give it my all.”
They spun toward the beast as he charged toward them.

14th Day of the Month of Togashi, the Temple of the Ninth Kami, the Shadowlands

The animated body of Isawa Akuma wrenched back from the line of salt Tadaka had hastily drawn.
Tadaka dove from a spray of acid, his nostrils burning. Blood ran down his face, but he ignored both
his wound and the whispers urging him to give that blood to the kansen. He chose another hallway
of the temple, hoping to once again duck out of sight.
Another moment to breathe.
He realized now that the Oni Lord was split between two bodies: his demonic one, and his
ancestor’s. But which one had reached out to him in his dreams? Was it truly his ancestor’s spirit,
or had it been the demon all along?
And did that mean that if he defeated the spirit here, Akuma would live on through the
demon? Was the best he could hope for to buy time for Asako Tsuki to return to the Empire? Could
he even free his ancestor from this cursed state?
Would he make it out alive?
The shambling horror froze between rows of forgotten tomes. He seemed to be hesitating.
Sluggish.
He’s distracted, Tadaka realized. The demon may exist in both places, but he had only one
mind. And whatever was happening with his other form, the oni was having trouble splitting his
attentions.
He resumed his frenzied writing, tracing words with his finger in ink mingled with the
crushed powder of his last piece of jade. It pooled in the origami paper’s creases. Azusa’s gift, a

1025
symbol of her trust, would make a fine paper charm, a thing to sever Akuma, if only temporarily,
from the Realm of Evil. If only Tadaka could complete the complicated letters. If only the kami
were here to bless it.
It was the faintest hum, a rattle in his chest, just barely perceivable. Were he not searching
so desperately, he wouldn’t have felt it at all. There was a kami here, perhaps several, somewhere
deep below. Not kansen, not corrupted spirits, but kami. Or ghosts, perhaps. Ancestors?
He could be imagining it. So desperate, that his mind invented a solution. After all, why
would such spirits be in a place like this?
No. He had to believe that what he felt was real. He had to believe, impossible as it was, that
there was still an ally here he could convince to aid him. He had to. He had no options left.
The shambling horror raked at him with crystalline claws. Tadaka rolled away, paper gripped
in his dripping hand.
Whoever you are, Tadaka prayed, my hidden ally, whatever you are doing… don’t stop! Keep
him busy!
His legs burned as the halls shook with thunderous roars. I just need a little more time!

1026
14th Day of the Month of Togashi, The Tomb of the Ninth Kami

Beneath the library of nightmares, breathless and ducking from the gaze of his long-dead ancestor,
Isawa Tadaka found the sword: An ancient straight blade of hammered iron, no sheath. A curved
handle, heavy orb pommel. And yet, defying centuries, there was not a speck of rust.
It couldn’t have been Matsu’s. Wrong style. Utaku’s, then?
The sword rested here, undisturbed, because none of these denizens could touch it. Beneath
it glowed a thick patch of fronds, blooming even though there was no light.
This was the voice that had called out to him, a lone song of sanity in a chorus of maddened
kansen. The kami in this blade had awakened. Were it an ordinary kami, this place would have
corrupted it. But this spirit was far from ordinary. Whatever its wielder had done had made the spirit
strong.
And once he invoked the spirit, it would flee, just as the others invoked in the Shadowlands
had. The sword would become nothing more than an ordinary, crumbling relic. The Isawa family
existed to preserve such artifacts. Every instinct screamed that he seek another way. Perhaps he
could wield the sword instead? Cut him down?
No. That wouldn’t work. His ancestor’s body was already dead. Animated dead. Tadaka
needed to sever the connection itself. Otherwise, Akuma would just possess something else.
There was no other way. This object was just a shell. The spirit within, that was what was
sacred. The people he’d sworn to protect, they were what mattered most. Hadn’t Kuni Yori taught

1027
him this? All that time wandering the wastes, Yori had shown him exactly how to defeat the Oni
Lord.
Tadaka scooped the sword up as Akuma’s voice echoed in the darkness. He would have to
complete his task running. The demon was close again. How much time did he even have left?

Meanwhile, near Cherry Blossom Snow Lake

The last time Hida Sukune had seen an onikuma, a “demon-bear,” it had nearly decimated his
expedition. Claws like wakizashi, fur that broke blades, a body the size of a stone-thrower. He’d
been helpless to do anything against it. But this time, he was glad it fought on his side.
It was as if the entire forest had risen to cast away the Shadowlands invaders. Oni swatted at
birds and deer, only to fall prey to mauling bears. The Fox Clan had come through after all, and now
he and the other officers could disengage. They had a moment to breathe.
Across the field, surrounded by the chaos of battle, a new body stood, glistening and sickly
green with scales and horns and three flaming eyes. Akuma no Oni. The plan had worked. At last,
the Oni Lord was revealed.
No ballistae were left standing. No Kuni shugenja or Inferno Guard were left unengaged. No
heralds remained in the field to give orders. A vanguard had formed nearby—Sukune could just
make out his brother Yakamo leading them, and Matsu Tsuko waving the standard—but the samurai
and soldiers were wholly occupied with beating back the oni spawn who were trying to reach their
master. At last, the Oni Lord was exposed, and Sukune had nothing left to throw at him.
Nothing except two warriors, who had Akuma engaged. Sukune could not make them out at
this distance. Whoever they were, he could do nothing for them. The fate of the Crab Clan—of the
entire Empire—was in their hands.
Whoever you are, he thought, make this count.

Why you, Shiba Tsukune?

She darted out of the path of three acidic arcs flung from the demon’s three tongues. This
form was smaller, and maybe a little weaker, but Akuma was still three times her size. And now, he
was faster…

1028
 Bitter fumes burned her eyes, blurring her vision. She ducked beneath a swiping claw, and
into the path of Akuma’s massive reptilian foot. Forced to choose, she accepted the consequences
and tried to roll with the blow. She felt something snap as the force sent her sprawling.
Of all the brave souls who marched against the Oni Lord, what makes you think you can
beat him?
Katsuo had asked her much the same question, hadn’t he? He didn’t feel that he should be
here, that he could contribute anything significant to the fight.
And yet, here he was, leaping over Tsukune to put himself between her and the oni, swiping
wildly and protectively to drive the demon back. Akuma reared, three eyes narrowing on the new
threat.
Akuma must be more vulnerable than before! Why else would he avoid a mere blade?
She called Katsuo’s name and tossed him her jade. He caught it haphazardly, and
emboldened, advanced on the creature, sword held inexpertly at the ready.
She forced her knee beneath her. Her head pounded, and breathing hurt, like something was
tangled up insider her chest and wouldn’t expand. But seeing Katsuo now, recklessly disregarding
his own safety, how could she give anything less than her all?
The Oni Lord broke the Crab’s defenses—their very Wall. He sundered their champion and
scattered their samurai. Their entire history has been dedicated to defeating the Shadowlands. Yet
who among them faces him now?
Katsuo leaped at a feint and was punished. The demon’s tail tore away lamellar plates and
forced him to the ground. Tsukune darted forward with a cry, and Akuma abandoned his bone-
crushing stomp to face her. She halted, sword ready. Maybe if they surrounded him, kept him
moving, they could force him to make a mistake?
The Son of Storms draws his lineage to a son of Hida. A Fortune’s blood rushes through his
veins. You may carry the name of a Heavenly Kami, but unlike the Son of Storms, your lineage is
purely mortal.
Katsuo clambered to his feet. He shouted. The demon spun.
Tsukune leaped onto Akuma’s exposed back and brought her sword up high.
The demon fell backward. She rolled off just before he smashed back-first into the ground.
The air left her, the sword falling out of her reach. Akuma rose again. His spines left holes in the
earth. She rolled away from jets of his acid spray. Safe from harm, but now further from her weapon.

1029
 Could an Isawa call upon the five elements to defeat the Oni Lord? Could a Kuni? Even
their power does not belong to them—it belongs to spirits and Fortunes. Yet if gods are powerless
to stop him, what hope is there for humankind?
Katsuo thrust out the jade to hold the demon at bay. Akuma titled his head, as if amused.
But he didn’t advance, merely ducking back or to the side as Katsuo thrashed, again and again.
Tsukune covered her nose against acidic fumes. Blood trickled onto her sleeve, but she
ignored it. She extended her fingers. Even Ofushikai seemed to reflect her own fatigue, dragging
along the ground into her grasp.
Even the Master of Dragons, Togashi Yokuni, for all his mystic power and wisdom, could
do nothing but stall for time. Are you even sure this was not a part of the Oni Lord’s plan?
She needed a respite. Her muscles burned with every movement. She couldn’t seem to draw
enough air into her lungs. She felt like she might collapse at any moment. Katsuo still fought on,
but he was fading, diminishing, sluggish. Akuma showed no signs of tiring. He didn’t need rest,
didn’t need to pause. How much longer could they keep going?
Panicked shouts. An oni spawn nearly slipped through the line of Yakamo’s vanguard. They
were being overwhelmed. They’d been fighting all morning. The hours of nonstop battle were
finally taking their toll. They couldn’t hold back the rabble for much longer.
Why you, Shiba Tsukune? Why this peasant, Katsuo? Why, of all the heroes of legend, are
you both here instead of them?
“It doesn’t matter why,” she replied to whatever spoke to her now. “We’re the ones who are
here.”
Correct, the voice answered.
Her sword. It was sheathed in faint light, twisting around the blade, like coils of flame. The
voice was coming from Ofushikai. Ancient, amused, wise…
Now, it said, show them all what mortals can do.
Akuma screeched as Katsuo struck it with the jade. He crossed into the demon’s reach and
dug his sword into the monstrous leg. Switching his grip, as he’d seen others do, his muscles tensed
to carve a tear into his corrupted flesh.
Claws raked the man’s face. Red splashed onto the ground.
And now he was in the demon’s grasp, arms pinned at his sides in the demon’s bone-crushing
grip. Akuma’s lips parted and revealed rows of dagger teeth.

1030
 Tsukune’s heart pounded as she dragged herself up, but they were too far apart—there was
no way to reach him. Muscles rippled in the Oni Lord’s arms, a trickle of dark blood winding through
his fingers. Katsuo’s face seemed oddly resolute as Akuma unlocked his maw. Fearless, to his last
moment, he stared into the oni’s mouth as razor teeth encircled his head.

The last incantation fell from Tadaka’s lips. The sword was heavier now. Dull. He’d felt the spirit
leave the shell, but it was different somehow. Perhaps it hadn’t been a kami, but an ancestral
guardian, or something else. But whatever it was, it eagerly answered.
Already the paper ward, written on Azusa’s origami paper in jade ink, sprouted tiny fronds.
The spirit was willing. He needed one last offering. One final—
Tadaka felt his ribs snap as he smashed against the wall. The sword clattered to the floor.
Stone claws pinned him, pushing against his chest. Waves of pain wracked his body. His possessed
ancestor leaned in, Tadaka’s face blistering from the heat of three fire-orb eyes.
There was no time left. His own Earth, his body, was all he had left to give.
You are too late, came the Oni Lord’s voice. Nothing will stop—
Tadaka exhaled. Take it.
With his last ounce of strength, Tadaka slapped the paper charm on his ancestor’s face.
“Let me teach you something.”
The Oni Lord’s screams tore through the shrine.

Katsuo grunted as he struck the dirt. Fangs snapped at the empty air where his neck had been. He
jerked back, away from the trembling claws and flailing tongues. Everything seemed to pause as
Akuma shook, eye-orbs dimming, and wavering as if he were boiling inside.
He’s weakened! Tsukune realized.
With her ghost eye, she could barely catch a tiny glint of glowing purple light. A rectangular
charm with faint writing, perfectly centered on the oni’s forehead.
Katsuo locked her gaze with wordless affirmation, eyes widening urgently, as if to signal:
Now! NOW!
There would be no second chance.
Tsukune bolted, Ofushikai ready.

1031
 Katsuo flung the jade with a wrist-flick. It arced in slow motion as she closed the gap. She
caught it in her left hand.
The monster steadied, recovering. Flames returned to his eyes.
Katsuo hunched his back and braced himself. She couldn’t see his face, but he nodded.
The creature’s eyes cleared. Realization washed over his features.
Tsukune’s foot planted between Katsuo’s shoulders. Her momentum pushed her forward.
With all her strength, she sprung off his back.
Ofushikai dug into the creature’s shoulder. Tsukune’s elbows struck his chest. Akuma
reeled, his abyssal maw opening in a scream. Fumes burned her nostrils, acid burned her skin. She
wrenched the sword out as he recovered, his heavy claws wrapping around her. As a vice-like grip
began squeezing her sides, she brought the blade high.
With the last of her strength, she plunged Ofushikai into the glowing light.
The blade slid through scales and sunk with no resistance, not even against bone. She didn’t
stop until the sword’s guard pressed against the Oni Lord's flesh, the blade jutting out from under
Akuma’s jaw.
Her ears popped. A mortal spasm that dug claws into her chest. An abyssal scream that filled
her lungs with fire.
Her fingers uncurled from Ofushikai’s handle as her strength faded. The oni toppled forward.
His skin grayed and cracked, calcifying into stone. She watched him petrify, the Oni Lord’s arms
solidifying into thick rock, pinning her. Unable to free herself, she felt the ground rushing up behind
her with spine-breaking speed. In his death throes, Akuma’s final act would be to crush her beneath
a body of stone.
With one eye, she saw Akuma no Oni's spiteful maw in the throes of his death. The hatred
spilling out. Burning. The demon would curse this world with his last breath.
With the other, her ghost eye, she saw only Tadaka. He was smiling in spite of the skin
missing from his cheek. He looked so peaceful. So happy. The light passed through him, and he
floated like a feather before her, but she could smell his sandalwood scent, and she could even feel
his hand on the back of her neck, as well as his gentle forehead as he pressed it against hers. She
closed her eyes. He was warm.
It was what she had hoped to feel in her last moments, before she left this world. The
Fortunes were kind after all. She embraced him, and everything that had led her here.

1032
 “My life,” she whispered.
He replied. “My Soul.”
And then, darkness. The ear-splitting sound of rock shattering against the unyielding ground
was mercifully brief.

The battlefield sounds fell away as Katsuo clawed at the crumbled stone that had once been Akuma
no Oni. A burst of rallying samurai, the spontaneous unmaking of the oni spawn around him, the
breaking of goblins at the loss of their general, and even Yakamo’s thundering battle cry and other
voices raised in victory, all dimmed as he strained to free the Phoenix Champion.
Buried under so much stone, crushed by the one’s dying body, there was no way Tsukune
could have lived. But he tossed the crumbling rocks aside, sweat pouring from his brow as he dug.
He had to free her. He couldn’t leave her corpse under all that rock, all that…
Empty space. A gap. Sunlight pouring in. Katsuo’s eyes widened as his face went pale.
He fell to hands and knees.
He whispered, “Thank the Fortunes.”

Tsukune squinted into the sunlight, blinking up at him from her tiny crater. Split stone formed a
pocket around her. It was as if she’d been protected somehow, as if something had embraced her in
a bubble, breaking the stone around her, leaving her untouched and lying on the soft ground.
“Cherry blossoms.”
Katsuo paused. “What?”
She smiled. “There are cherry blossoms.”
A petal, soft pink, glided into his vision.
Katsuo lifted his face into a shower of pinks and whites. Cherry blossoms, long out of season,
cascaded across an impossibly blue sky. Far across a field dotted with calcified demons and
sundered stones, the forest bloomed. Blossoms mirrored across the pristine surface of the Lake of
Cherry Blossom Snow. She could tell from his expression that Katsuo had never seen so many
blooms at once. And looking up from beneath, seeing the flurry of petals falling around him,
Tsukune was reminded of the first snow of winter, and the wish for a brighter spring.
He leaped to his feet and cheered. Samurai voices, the mingled victory cries of the Great
Clans, thundered back.

1033
 And Tsukune laid back her head as her fingers tangled with a sash of orange silk. A mask.
The last thing of Tadaka’s in this world. How it had come to her, across all this distance, she would
perhaps never know. But she was glad. This, like her pain, was one more gift.
“We did it,” she whispered, as the world blurred with tears. “We actually did it.”

He wasn’t sure what was left. The kami, or whatever spirit had lain in wait, had taken much this
time. But he could accept that. He knew the spirit would soar, untouched, back to the Emerald Land.
His ancestor’s voice, calm and content: I am free, Tadaka. Thank you.
Please protect them, he thought. Protect Tsuki. Protect and guide the others.
And then an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Whatever awaited his ancestor now, whatever
Emma-O would decide, at least he was free.
Tadaka sighed and closed his eyes. He was so tired. He would lay here for a while. Yes, for
a long while.
When he closed his eyes, he was standing before a glossy reflection pool dotted with fallen
peach blossoms. He could hear the songs of nightingales mingled with laughter, and see the gentle
smile and camellia blush of a seventeen-summers girl.
I’m sorry, Tsukune. I hope you understand.
I love you.
And then he slept. Deep, and without dreams.

1034
14th Day of Togashi, Cherry Blossom Snow Lake

Hida Sukune forgot his rapidly cooling ginger tea as the impromptu festival unfolded around him.
The Otter Clan riverboat samurai had broken their casks, and sake flowed. Warriors of the
Crane, Crab, Phoenix, Dragon, and Unicorn had all formed a ring around a dramatically gesturing
Sparrow Clan storyteller. Now and again, someone interjected a proud boast or a wry remark, and
everyone laughed.
From the center of the thick crowd, a patched-up Hida O-Ushi lifted a grinning Shiba
Tsukune by the waist into the air. Her red and laughing face bobbed above their heads, and the
crowd erupted into cheers and raised sake cups. From this vantage, Sukune could just make out his
sister’s bragging: “Don’t be fooled by this one’s size, she’s ready to cut down another Oni Lord!”
Sukune drifted his gaze to a closer, more quiet gathering. Matsu Tsuko, only a touch less
sober than before, cradled a small sorghum wine bottle with her slung arm. Nearby, Bayushi Yojiro
recalled what had transpired at Otosan Uchi to the others. Sukune had already heard the story, but
Matsu Tsuko seemed especially interested in the ending: how Mirumoto Hitomi had crossed swords
with the traitor Shoju and cut him down with Itsuwari. A stony look washed over the Matsu’s face,
and her raised eyes met with Sukune’s from the other side of the crowd.
She nodded at him. He lifted his cup.
His brother’s voice thundered above the din. “And somehow, you arrived here from there,
in the blink of an eye?” Yakamo smirked, eyes glittering with drink. “And we’re supposed to believe
that, Yojiro-san?”

1035
 Tsuko shrugged. “I do.”
Yojiro smiled softly at the Matsu daimyō. “Ah, that’s right. You did manage this yourself,
didn’t you?”
“Help from someone I love,” Tsuko replied. She smiled up at the starry sky, raising her bottle
with her good arm. “This is for you, Arasou.”
A few confused looks exchanged between those gathered, and then Yojiro raised his cup.
“To Akodo Arasou, then.”
Tsuko looked momentarily surprised, then joined them in drink. Sukune smirked inwardly.
Yojiro was an odd choice for Scorpion champion. Perhaps he would do better than Shoju had.
“Hida Sukune!”
Sukune glanced up. The Son of Storms, grinning in spite of his braced leg, gestured toward
him from his seat among the others. “Let’s see it, already!”
Very well. He stood and approached. O-Ushi noticed and pointed; soon she and Tsukune
were gathered with the others. Among the expectant eyes that followed, the peasant Katsuo
nervously bit his lip.
Sukune unfurled the sheet and laid it at their feet. He gestured to his brushwork.
Katsuo peered at the paper. “What does it say?”
Sukune pointed to the two characters, one at a time. “Victory. Man. Together, they read:
‘Katsuo.’”
A stunned expression washed over Katsuo’s face. “My name? That’s how it is written?”
“And the rest is an account of your deeds here.” Yakamo slapped him hard between the
shoulder blades. “That’s a Twenty-Goblin Winter, if I’m ever asked. How about it, Katsuo? We
could use another hero on the Carpenter Wall.”
Katsuo looked stunned.
“Bah,” Tsuko shook her head. “And waste his talents? Katsuo, I know a swordmaster who
would be willing to teach an adult student. Swear yourself into my service, and I’ll elevate you
among the Matsu.”
Yoritomo laughed before Katsuo could speak. “How gracious of the Great Clans to offer
new shackles!” He gestured out, as if framing the horizon. “Why not see the entire world? The
Mantis can show you things you never knew existed!”
Katsuo looked questioningly to Shiba Tsukune.

1036
 She smiled at him. “He is a samurai now. And rōnin forge their own paths.”
“And ‘samurai choose their own lords,’” said Tsuko, quoting Leadership. She nodded. “My
offer will stand until you are ready, Katsuo-san. Take what time you need. A warrior pilgrimage, if
that’s what it takes.”
Yoritomo raised his glass. “To the man whose name means ‘victory’!”
Katsuo lowered his head as they cheered his name. Tears welled in his eyes. But he was
smiling.
And then a shout. A young Kaiu, mop-topped and grinning wide. “You live, Yakamo?”
Yakamo leapt to his feet. “Fusao! You’ve been here all this time?”
The two embraced. Then Yakamo lifted up the shorter man, kissing him before the stunned
assembly. “It figures you would show your face only after I’ve been worried sick!”
O-Ushi shot Sukune a glance from the other side of the crowd, incredulously smiling, as if
to say: Did you know about this?
Sukune chuckled and raised his cup. “To unexpected reunions.”
The others cheered, drank, and debated what they would drink to next.
Sukune said nothing as his cup was refilled. There was still much to do. Dispatching heralds.
Mourning the dead. Rebuilding.
And driving out whatever invading forces lingered here. The full breadth of the Oni Lord’s
march still remained to be seen. Then there was the matter of the fallen Yogo Castle. Liberating it
from another Shadowlands army would be a great challenge, especially with the Crab so diminished.
They would need to rely on the other clans for aid. At least now, Sukune knew they could.
Word of this victory would reach his father at Kyūden Hida. The Great Bear would then
decide whether or not to step down. Sukune had tried not to think about it. The notion filled him
with dread. But as Hida Kisada had deferred entrusting the ancestral sword Chikara to any of his
children, they would soon be faced with a difficult conversation.
But not tonight. Those worries were for tomorrow. Not for now.
Several Moto drummed a beat on traveling drums while a Mirumoto plucked a lute in
accompaniment, and a Kaito shine-keeper danced with bells to the joy of those clapping along. For
a brief flash, Sukune spotted a laughing Tsuruchi leading an eager Fox Clan shugenja by the hand;
they vanished into the crowd. Samurai swapped stories beneath the jovial throng, and Sukune could

1037
not help but notice the varying heraldry on their backs. Above them wove the banners of the clans,
both great and minor, mingled together.
They were so different. Some of those differences, their conflicting values and ways, were
irreconcilable, chasms that not even time could close. It had sometimes felt as though they were
destined to fracture, to shatter. Tomorrow, they would be enemies.
But tonight, they were family.
For the first time in his life, Sukune finally understood how Rokugan became an Empire.
History made it seem like an accident, or destiny. But it was neither of those things. It was because
the Great Families, when united, could not be defeated. When they fought each other, they could
tear the Empire apart. But when they worked together, recognizing each other’s right to exist, their
strengths combined and all else set aside?
They were unstoppable. The greatest force in the entire world.
He took it all in, etching it deep into his own heart. If darker days still lay ahead, then he
wanted to be able to recall this moment, when the clans set all else aside and drank together.

Away from the party, Shiba Tsukune looked again to the south. She winced at the pain of breathing
in too deeply, gingerly feeling the bandages over her cracked ribs. It should have been worse than
this, by all rights. But something had protected her. Someone.
“Can’t talk you out of it?”
She shook her head at Hida O-Ushi. “I know they’re still out there. I just do.”
She expected her friend to protest, but it seemed O-Ushi understood. “I’ll put a scouting
party together. They’ll be ready by tomorrow.” She held up a preemptive hand. “Don’t bother
protesting, either. You might be an oni-slayer now, but I can still toss you into the lake whenever I
want, so stay on my good side.”
I like her, Tsukune thought. “Thank you, O-Ushi.”
The tall warrior nodded. “When you come back, we’re going to that sumai event in Jukami.
Don’t even try to get out of it!”
Asako Maezawa frowned as O-Ushi returned to the party. He drew long on his pipe speaking
only when they were alone.
“Tadaka is gone.” No emotion.
Tsukune felt her smile fade. “Perhaps.”

1038
 “Then you admit, this is a fool’s errand. You would risk Ofushikai, and perhaps more,
for—”
She met his gaze. He paused in the flash of purple glowing in her spirit-touched eye.
He meant well. This was his expertise. How many had he personally lost to the Shadowlands’
call? But what he asked of her, she could not accept.
“Shiba could not abandon Isawa,” she whispered. “And I cannot either.”
Maezawa rubbed his bald forehead. “I will grant you this much: there is a chance we may
discover the fate of the Master of Water’s niece. Perhaps you owe Tsuki that much, having sent her
to her doom.”
Those words were a guilty dagger in her gut. Maezawa always knew how to make her feel
only inches tall. And it was true. If there was a chance her friend Asako Tsuki still lived…
The old man grunted. Hard lines dug into his weathered face. “But that is not why you are
doing this, is it? Make no mistake, if the Master of Earth stirs, then he is not Tadaka. Not anymore.
You and I, we did what we could. His own master tried to reason with him. He has played his part.
Whatever befell him…”
His voice wavered, then softened. His tone was that of someone who knew quite well what
he was talking about, and someone who wished so sorely that he did not.
“Trust me, child. You do not want to know. You do not want to see whatever has become of
him. You must let him go.” He grimaced. “Or he will pull you into the dark with him.”
She closed her eyes as he walked away.
It was disgraceful for a yōjimbō to stand aside while their charge was in danger. But she was
not his yōjimbō anymore. And a gulf had formed between them, hadn’t it?
So why did she feel like she was torn in two?
No. She couldn’t abandon either of them. Not while there was still a chance for them. There
was no other course of action for her to take. If she did anything else, she wouldn’t be Shiba
Tsukune. And that was the only person she knew how to be.
Thunder echoed across the plains. From the south. She knew in her heart that the storm was
coming for her, whether she waited or rose to meet it.

Later that Month, Somewhere in Dragon Lands

1039
Between one step and the next, Mitsu’s world vanished into an inferno of pain.
Agony past anything he’d ever known ripped through his soul. The power that sparked in
his tattoos roared into a blaze, like staring into the sun. Too much power for any human to bear. But
he couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t push it back—couldn’t even feel his body. There was only
overwhelming fire…
…and buried within it, images.
Seven new trees, sprung from the roots of the past. The stars swinging full circle. An
unhealed wound. A shadow behind a shadow.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, it vanished. Mitsu collapsed to the ground.
Distantly, as if a thunderclap had crushed his hearing, he heard people shouting. Red dotted
the snow beneath him: blood from his eyes, from his ears. His entire body throbbed like it had been
crushed in a vise. Through blurred eyes, he saw feet running toward him; he tried to rise, but his
body, trained through lifetimes to answer his every command, would not obey.
The images remained, though, burned into his mind.
As did the fear.

Atop a far-off mountain, in the High House of Light, the man called Togashi Gaijutsu sighed and
passed one hand over his blind eyes. The visions taxed even his divine endurance; for his mortal
champions, it was the purest distillation of suffering. And Mitsu lacked the nemuranai armor that
should have protected him from the worst of it.
“I am sorry you had to bear that,” he murmured to his distant disciple. “But with the collapse
of the wave, Yokuni’s time has ended. And the Empire must be ready for what comes next.”
He rose and slid the door aside, letting in the icy winter air. The cold was nothing next to the
weariness in his bones, the weight of a burden carried far too long.
His sightless gaze turned, unerringly, to the south. “Brother. A thousand years ago, our duel
began. Perhaps the time has come for it to end at last.”

12th Day of Ryoshun, Otosan Uchi

1040
An unseasonably warm breeze wafted into the Crane guest house and rustled the papers on her
writing desk. Doji Shizue scratched behind a furry ear as Fumio snored softly in her lap, oblivious
to the chorus of birdsong and the pounding of carpenters’ hammers.
Though she had been writing letters all morning, she couldn’t bring herself to get up from
her seat and disturb the slumbering cat just yet. So long as he slept, there was nothing to menace her
calligraphy brush, and she wouldn’t have to worry whether her recipient would take offense to a
flourish of small inky pawprints across the page.
She had a little longer before needing to prepare for court. Time enough for one more letter.
She dipped her brush in the ink and began to write.

Spring is nearly here, and I hope that this letter brings warm days in addition to my warm
tidings. I pray that your journey from the Castle of the Fox has been uneventful and swift.
Much has transpired at the capital since I last wrote, and the spirit of its citizens has shifted
with word of Akuma no Oni’s defeat. The toll of death and destruction that weighed on the city even
after the traitor’s defeat has lifted, giving way to a sense of relief and—dare I say it—hope. Everyone
in the capital, from his excellency the Regent Kakita Yoshi to the lowliest tanner, seems to be
counting down the days until the dawning of the New Year. The scent of newly arrived tatami mats
also brings to mind fresh starts, and our entire household is intent on sweeping clean the evil spirits
that have plagued us since Satsume’s unfortunate passing. The promise of a peace brokered between
the Lion and Unicorn blossoms alongside the gardens.
Lauded as a hero among her clan, Ikoma Tsanuri has recently departed for Sacred Watch
Palace, where she is to be reunited with her parents Ikoma Anakazu and Akari after Matsu Tsuko
reversed the couple’s divorce. It is said that in addition to personally meeting with her generals to
root out any trace of the corruption begotten by Ikoma Ujiaki’s schemes, Matsu Tsuko is working
closely with the Kitsu daimyō to find paths to peace that honor the memory and sacrifice of the Lion
Clan’s ancestors.
With the Unicorn heir returned from the Burning Sands and the Battle of Cherry Blossom
Snow Lake, Shinjo Altansarnai and Iuchi Daiyu have begun preparing to travel home to oversee
spring planting and the foaling season. Their three children, Haruko, Yasamura, and Shono will
remain here with Ide Tadaji in the capital to work out a new treaty with the Lion, if a lasting

1041
agreement of peace can indeed be found. Poor Iuchi Shahai, who was last seen with Prince Daisetsu,
is still missing, much to the consternation of the Imperial household.
As you have hopefully heard proclaimed by the Miya Heralds, the Regent is offering a
substantial reward to any who can provide the Hantei heirs with safe conduct to the capital.
Mirumoto Hitomi has been appointed to lead a contingent of Imperial Legionnaires in this effort.
Kitsuki Yaruma and Mirumoto Raitsugu remain in the capital as liaisons for daimyō Mirumoto
Masashige until the lost heir to the Dragon Clan, Togashi Mitsu, makes his location known.
Yet it seems Mitsu is not the only errant clan champion. For now, Asako Maezawa serves as
the delegate representing the Phoenix Elemental Council members in court while Champion Shiba
Tsukune completes some important but secret endeavor. Here in the capital, many hope that
endeavor involves Lady Kaede’s imminent return to the capital, as she has not been seen since her
husband's renunciation of his family and clan. The absence of the Emerald Throne’s spiritual
advisor has been felt often in the recent months and, for my own part, I would like to know that she
remains safe.
Finally, Hida Kisada seems to have pulled through and is improving after sustaining
grievous injuries, although the Crab Clan itself has not yet recovered from the devastation wrought
by Akuma no Oni’s Shadowlands horde. Daimyō Yasuki Taka is sailing with another contingent of
the Imperial Legions to begin emergency repairs to the Carpenter Wall, lest another threat rise from
the south while a gap exists in the clan’s defenses.
As always, do not hesitate to offer the assistance of the Crane Clan should you find yourself
in a position to lend aid to these noble heroes and their vassals.
When next you visit our champion at the Esteemed Palaces of the Crane, do not be surprised
to find the former Imperial Advisor also in residence along with her son. (Perhaps this means our
champion will get her first taste of parenthood, what with a young samurai joining her household.)
Despite her role in liberating the city, many in the capital cast a wary eye over the Lady Kachiko
and young Dairu owing to their association with the traitor. The Scorpion Clan Champion knows
that this is a delicate time for his clan and that keeping her at a distance will allow him the time and
space needed to repair the clan’s reputation. Given the demands of the championship on his time,
he has relinquished his position as chief magistrate of Toshi Ranbo, which remains an Imperial
holding.

1042
 Of course, there is one member of our champion’s household whose absence you will no
doubt feel keenly. I know that Doji Kuwanan meant a great deal to you, and we all mourn his loss.
His sacrifice to protect the Champion of the Lion Clan may yet be remembered as a balm that allows
the wounds felt between the Left and Right hands of the Emperor to begin healing.
Even the Empress Hochiahime has had a breakthrough with her health. After Her Imperial
Majesty was evacuated from the city during the traitor’s coup, the healers of the Centipede Clan
have been tending to the Empress personally. It seems that Lady Sun indeed smiles upon the
priestesses of the Moshi family, and we shall pray that her blessings extend to the rest of her children
and her light dispels the shadows hiding the lost Hantei heirs.
Although the Seppun astrologers are not yet prepared to pronounce the omens of the coming
year, one thing is certain: Rokugan is changed. On this point—and perhaps on this point only—the
Great Clans are agreed. It falls to all of us loyal servants of the Empire to determine whether that
change is for the better.

Your loyal and loving cousin,

Doji Shizue

She summoned her handservant Naoko and pressed the folded paper into her hands. “Please
see that this reaches Kakita Asami.”
Naoko bowed and departed silently, closing the screen door behind her.
Fumio’s ear twitched, and one eye opened to peer up at Shizue.
She smiled. “Did you enjoy your nap? You've awoken just in time.”

Senzai stood from the pond. It was a bird that broke her from her reverie. A bird’s call.
It reminded her of a dream she once had. One from long ago. Another lifetime.
Realization washing over Togashi’s face beneath the plum tree.
Shinjo’s laughter over some silly joke they both could no longer remember.
Fog rising from her lips, sitting in the snow with Doji.
Long conversations before the fire with Hantei. Shiba’s joy, his inspiration, shining through
his eyes as he recorded their words.
Lord Akodo spitting in her face.

1043
 She loved those memories. She loved them all. How nice it was to recall them again.
Senzai laughed. Although it took so many lives, she finally remembered why she’d stayed.
The world was so beautiful. How had she ever forgotten?
What role would she play this time?
Whatever it would be, she would see it through without fear. Her destiny, and that of this
shining Empire, awaited.
“Let us get started,” she said, as a crow dove from the sky and landed on her shoulder.

1044
1045
For over one thousand years, the seven Great Clans of Rokugan have served the Chrysanthemum
Throne according to their unique strengths and weaknesses. This section provides a thematic
introduction to each of these clans.

At the southern border of Rokugan stands a grim miracle: the Kaiu Wall,
stretching like a great puckered scar along the landscape, its slate-grey blocks
fitted together seamlessly into a structure thirty feet thick and a hundred feet tall.
To the south loom the blighted Shadowlands, the domain of the corrupted armies
of Jigoku, and to the north lie the lands of the Crab Clan, the Wall’s crafters and defenders.
After the Seven Thunders repelled Fu Leng’s dark army from Rokugan, the first Emperor
commanded that a great wall be built to protect the Empire from the evils of the Shadowlands. For
centuries, the Crab Clan has carried out that command with dedication. Superstitious peasants
whisper that the mortar of the Wall is strengthened with the blood of Crab warriors; although the
Crab would never stoop to practicing blood magic—even to protect their beloved Empire—it is an
accurate metaphor for their suffering. While others sing the praises of the Thousand Years of Peace,
this is at best a false pleasantry to the Crab, who lose troops daily to both the attacks on the Wall
and the corruptive power of the Taint. Even when faced with such hardship, the Crab Clan has never
wavered, standing steadfast in its duty to protect the border of the Empire.

1046
 Stubbornness has ever been a trait of the Crab. The Kami Hida placed the seat of his clan in
the great mountains of the south, claiming that anyone incapable of surviving in such a place was
unworthy of following him. At the clan’s founding, three men stepped forward to prove themselves
and were sent to slay a terrifying demon. Working together, they prevailed and were accepted as the
founders of the great families within the Crab. The stations of their descendants still reflect the roles
of their forebears within that legendary battle: the Hiruma, whose founder tracked the movements
of the beast, now provide the scouts; the Kuni, whose founder studied the demon’s weaknesses, train
priests and scholars; and the Kaiu, whose founder forged the blade that slew the demon, have for
generations been craftspeople and builders, lending their name to the vast wall they built. Only one
family has joined the ranks since then, and under unusual circumstances. The Yasuki family, chafing
under the demands of the haughty Crane Clan, broke its ties with the Crane and offered fealty to the
Crab, who eagerly accepted. Unlike the other families, who train for battle against the Shadowlands,
the Yasuki train as courtiers in negotiation and commerce, an indispensable asset to the otherwise-
militant Crab.
To those who look upon the Crab kindly, their strength is impressive and their determination
honorable. But to those who do not—those who benefit from the protection of the Wall without
knowing the sacrifices it requires— the Crab are impolite brutes, too pigheaded to comprehend the
intricacies of court decorum. Regardless of how others might view them, the Crab cannot mire
themselves in bickering and intrigue. They present their back to the court only so they may more
fully face the true enemy in the Shadowlands beyond.

At the dawn of the Empire, after the Kami had fallen from the Celestial Heavens,
they found themselves plunged into a mortal world rife with cruelty and war. The
Kami Doji—sister of Hantei, the first Emperor—resolved to bring order to this
savage realm. The embodiment of elegance and grace, Doji walked among the
primitive peoples, calming them in the way fair weather calms a storm-tossed sea. From her, they
learned writing so they could record their achievements, politics to govern their affairs, economics
and commerce to manage their wealth, and art and culture to lift them from their lives of misery.
Those she touched the most became her devoted followers, the first samurai of the Crane Clan. Since
that time, the Crane have become both the poets and the poetry of the Empire, at once the

1047
swordsmiths and the duelists wielding the smith’s blades. In every aspect of their lives, the Crane
strive for mastery in all things, an ideal that the other clans can only hope to emulate.
The Doji, the ruling family of the Crane, are perfection made flesh, the pinnacle of grace and
beauty. With serene smiles, they offer gifts to those who would oppose them, thereby subtly
ensnaring their enemies in intricate webs of favors and debts from which there is no easy escape.
The Kakita—a family named after Doji’s husband, the first Emerald Champion—craft music,
poetry, paintings, and sculptures of such breathtaking beauty that the endeavors of others are, at
best, pale imitations. Yet the blur of the sword is the ultimate expression of Kakita achievement, the
iaijutsu dueling strike of the katana blending art and mastery in a single blink of the eye. The
shugenja of the Asahina family are the pacifist heart of the Crane, mediators and healers who eschew
violence and spurn the battlefield. And if violence is inevitable, their delicate tsangusuri talismans
protect those who march to war in their stead. In times of conflict, the Daidoji family stands ready,
a keen but discreet weapon brandished in the clan’s defense. Besides filling the ranks of the so-
called “Iron Crane,” which forms the bulk of the Crane’s standing armies, the Daidoji also
clandestinely serve as the masters of cunning maneuvers and deceptive tactics. These covert scouts
harry opponents of much greater strength and numbers, wearing them down, confounding and
demoralizing them, finally striking only when swift and decisive victory is assured.
To the rest of the Empire, the Crane are a study in contrasts. They are both respected and
hated for their achievements, both admired and envied for their elegance and grace. They are the
makers of beauty and the beauty itself, devotees of peace and civility who nonetheless wield lethal
blades. But if samurai of the other Great Clans agree on anything, it is this: from the Crane’s
impeccable garments, which set the standards for style in the Empire, to the sprawling beauty and
wonder of their Fantastic Gardens, to their seemingly limitless talent for artistic accomplishment
and political dominance in Rokugan’s courts, the Crane don’t simply define what it means to be a
civilized Empire—they are the very civilized essence of Rokugan.

1048
 In an empire that usually prizes conformity and respect for tradition, the Dragon
Clan is an enigma. Inspired by their mysterious founder, the Kami Togashi, the
Dragon place more emphasis than most of their fellow samurai on the individual
search for enlightenment and expertise. In the centuries since the Kami fell to
earth, Togashi’s followers have acquired a reputation for strange behavior. Isolated by the mountains
of their northern home and entrusted with watching over the Empire, the Dragon rarely participate
as actively in the politics of the Empire as other clans do—and when they do intervene, it is often
for reasons others can only guess at. The secret of the Dragon is that they are guided by their
founder’s foresight, but even they do not always know what Togashi saw in his visions.
The Dragon are not without their traditions, but even those break the mold formed by a
thousand years of Rokugani history. It is said that Dragon shugenja and courtiers are warriors, their
warriors are monks, and their monks are inexplicable. Although the Mirumoto family produces some
of the best swordsmen in Rokugan, its members practice a difficult style known as niten, or “Two
Heavens,” wielding their katana and wakizashi simultaneously. The Agasha shugenja family studies
alchemy, which teaches them both to shift between the Elements in their prayers and to create such
wonders as specially treated sword blades and the powder for fireworks. These two families often
work together, so that Dragon bushi have a deeper understanding of the elemental kami than most
of their peers, and Dragon shugenja are a surprisingly common sight on the battlefield. The courtiers
of the Kitsuki family also study the art of the sword, and their investigative prowess is unmatched;
their training teaches them to piece together tiny clues to form a larger picture in a fashion few
outsiders can understand. Finally, the monks of the Togashi Tattooed Order, who are called ise zumi,
channel power through mystic tattoos. They follow individual paths even more than their clanmates
do, whether that involves seeking enlightenment through hermitage in the mountains or wandering
the Empire in search of new experiences.
This individualistic bent means that friendships and enmities with the Dragon often operate
on a personal level rather than a clan-wide one. Their enigmatic and isolated ways have earned them
very few true enemies, and even fewer close allies. Due to the great distance between them, the
Dragon have little contact with the Crab. They maintain cordial relationships with their neighbors
the Phoenix, with whom they share an interest in religion and mysticism, and the Unicorn, whose
foreign habits are likewise an odd match with the rest of Rokugan. The Dragon have more difficulty

1049
with the Lion, who view individualism with a skeptical eye, and the Crane, whose Kakita duelists
have rivaled the Mirumoto’s since the earlies days of the Empire. Perhaps their most interesting
relationship is with the Scorpion: The Dragon seem to understand the Clan of Secrets better than
anyone else—much to the frustration of Scorpion saboteurs unmasked by Kitsuki investigators.
Few can truly say they understand the Dragon. Some insist their beloved paradoxes and
puzzles are no more than a game, triviality masquerading as depth. To this accusation, the Dragon
quote a common saying of the ise zumi:
“What is wisdom?” one asked.
“What is not wisdom?” the other answered.

Every samurai who lives in Rokugan measures courage, honor, and duty by the
standard set by the Lion Clan. The Lion’s military is unrivaled, as there are no
sharper tacticians and no larger armies in all of Rokugan. This proud military
heritage has earned the Lion Clan a place as the Right Hand of the Emperor, sworn
to protect him by serving as his personal guard and his standing army. In light of this duty, fear
means nothing to Lion samurai. The threat of death only serves to embolden them and bolster their
courage, for there can be no greater end than to perish in honorable combat. As veterans of countless
wars, the Lion Clan knows that those who attack first shall be victorious.
Since the dawn of the Empire, the four families of the Lion Clan have embodied the Seven
Tenets of Bushidō. The Akodo family bears the name of the Lion Clan’s founding Kami: Akodo
One-Eye, the god of war and the greatest commander to ever live. According to all the tales, for a
thousand years no Akodo general has ever lost a battle, bestowing the family with a reputation for
invincible generals and brilliant tacticians. The Matsu family are the teeth of the Lion, sharpened
every day by arduous training. Each warrior is raised from the womb for war, to wield the katana
with fearsome skill and to die for the glory of Rokugan. Having served as the historians of Rokugan
since its inception, the Ikoma family makes warriors into legends. History is the key to victory, for
samurai learn best from their ancestors’ triumphs. The Kitsu family links the Realm of Mortals with
the Realm of Sacred Ancestors, their sōdan-senzo acting as spirit mediums for their honored dead.
These powerful shugenja summon the experience and wisdom of their ancient heroes to serve them
in the heat of battle, guiding the Lion Clan’s armies to victory against all odds. Through strategy,

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ferocity, sagacity, and legacy, these families of the Lion Clan maintain the disciplined war machine
of the samurai way of life.
As generals of the Emperor’s own army, the Lion view the other Great Clans only in terms
of their value in protecting Rokugan and in upholding the revered tenets of Bushidō. The Crab
Clan’s fortitude and courage have always earned Lion respect, yet the Lion also know that strategy
and discipline serve in places where mere strength cannot. The Lion’s rivalry with the Crane stems
from the simple question of what serves the Emperor best: the pampered discourse of Crane courtiers
or the ready steel of Lion swords? The Lion pay no heed to the Dragon, viewing them as reclusive
and hidden, and therefore useless members of the Empire. Peace means death to the samurai way of
life, so the Lion cannot abide Phoenix pacifism. The Scorpion must never be trusted, no matter how
sweetly their masks may smile, as their sting is never far behind. The Unicorn’s lack of discipline
renders them little more than barbarians, and Bushidō has no place for such wildness according to
the Lion.
Above all, the Lion live, breathe, and die for the Emperor and Rokugan. Should the interests
of the Emperor and the welfare of the Empire diverge, toward what deadly paths or dishonorable
fates would the Lion march?

The Phoenix is a symbol of contradictions: explosive power and great restraint,

vast intelligence and deep humility, immolating self-sacrifice and glorious rebirth.
These entwined virtues illuminate the path of Rokugan’s most mystical Great Clan,
the keepers of the Tao of Shinsei and caretakers of the Empire’s soul.
The Phoenix’s flame burned brightest in Shiba, the wisest and most humble of the fallen
Kami. While his siblings sought to secure their legacy and civilize the lands, Shiba sought
knowledge and harmony. In the fledgling Empire’s darkest hour, Shiba and the Little Teacher,
Shinsei, entreated the priest Isawa and his tribe to join them in fighting the forces of the
Shadowlands. While Isawa saw their wisdom, he would not surrender his tribe to the rule of the
Kami. When he refused, Shiba bent his knee, swearing fealty and pledging that if the tribe joined
the Empire, Shiba’s line would forever serve Isawa’s. With this humble gesture, Shiba established
the Phoenix’s deferential traditions and founded a clan in which warriors and priests could exist side
by side.

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 The Phoenix Clan follows Shiba’s example to this day. Guided by the wisdom of the Council
of Elemental Masters, the clan’s members tend to the spirits of the land and serve their lords as
priests and spiritual advisors. The Phoenix maintain shrines throughout the Empire, teach the
mysteries of the Tao, and preserve the harmony between mortals and gods.
Leading the Phoenix is the Isawa family, beloved of the kami and the foremost of Rokugan’s
scholars and shugenja. Many of the Empire’s shugenja traditions originate with the Isawa family,
and more children of the Isawa are born with the ability to hear the kami than any other family in
the Empire. Serving these priests are the Shiba, the Phoenix’s lone warrior family and foremost of
the Empire’s yōjimbō. Sworn to protect the clan’s shugenja, these warriors study theology and
philosophy to better understand and guard their charges from threats both mundane and
supernatural. Leading them is the Phoenix Clan Champion, an exemplary Shiba chosen not through
birthright, but by the ancestral sword of the Phoenix itself, Ofushikai. Yet even the clan champion
bends a knee to the five Elemental Masters, an arrangement unique to the Phoenix Clan. If the Isawa
are the mind and the Shiba are the arm, then the Asako are the Phoenix’s heart. Their compassionate
rhetoric can lower any guard, and it is said an Asako healer can overcome any malady. The primary
scholars of the Tao, the Asako have a small order of monks to maintain their libraries and keep the
Tao’s greatest secrets hidden until the world is ready for its truth.
As the scent of incense wafts unseen to all corners of a shrine, so do the spirit realms overlap
invisibly with our own. The Phoenix mediate between both worlds, appealing to the very soul of the
lands. Mountains collapse at their whispered requests, dry rivers are convinced to flow again,
plagues are banished, restless ghosts are returned to slumber, and crops flourish in previously barren
wastelands. Nevertheless, the Phoenix understand that even the purest wish can have unintended
and destructive consequences if the elements are brought out of balance. Although others consider
the Phoenix too hesitant in their entreaties to the kami, few are foolhardy enough to test the
Phoenix’s dedication to peace and harmony.

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 With six terrible words, the Kami Bayushi set his followers in the newly founded
Scorpion Clan on a dark and dangerous path. Enemies loomed beyond Rokugan’s
borders, but they also lurked within them. Bayushi swore to protect the Empire by
any means necessary. Where the Code of Bushidō tied the Emperor’s Left and
Right Hands—the courtiers of the Crane and the mighty legions of the Lion—the Emperor’s
Underhand could still reach. To combat the liars, the thieves, and the traitors within the Great Clans,
Bayushi’s followers would have to lie, steal, and cheat in turn. The weapons of the Scorpion became
blackmail, poison, and sabotage. The Scorpion dirtied their hands so that others’ could remain pure.
Each Scorpion family specializes in a different sort of deception, wearing masks as an overt
promise of their duplicity. The ruling family of the Scorpion, the Bayushi, are the charming smile
wielding a poisoned blade. Whether amid the clash of battle or the subtle schemes of court, they
specialize in getting close to their foes before striking a killing blow like their namesake, the
scorpion. The Shosuro, meanwhile, seem but a family of talented artists and actors, and little more.
Yet this, like so many things about the Scorpion, is a lie, because from their ranks come the clan’s
spies and saboteurs, their poisoners and assassins, and most ominous of all, the sinister ninja of
whispered legend. The Soshi, a family of shugenja, have mastered the subtle art of calling upon the
kami silently. Some claim the Soshi wield the shadows themselves as a weapon or a shield. Finally,
the Yogo, a family of shugenja descended from the Phoenix Clan, protect the Empire from Fu
Leng’s influence and punish those who delve into forbidden magics. Long ago, the Dark Kami
himself cursed those carrying the Yogo bloodline to inevitably betray the one they love most. From
then on, the Yogo could serve only the Scorpion, whom they would never love.
The Scorpion have both united the other clans against them in righteous anger and kept the
other clans divided so that no one coalition can overpower the Emperor. This has earned them no
few enemies over the centuries. The Lion and Crab are the most common victims of the Scorpion’s
treachery. The Crane and Phoenix pride themselves on refusing to stoop so low as the Scorpion,
even though they often find themselves on the same side as the Scorpion clan in the courts. The
Unicorn confound the Scorpion with their unpredictable ways, but the Clan of the Wind has brought
the Scorpion many new tricks and useful techniques from the lands beyond the Burning Sands. Not
least of these is the opium that enriches Ryoko Owari, the greatest and most prosperous city in all
the Empire.

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 Yet, in spite of—and perhaps because of—the clan’s fearsome reputation, there is none more
loyal than a Scorpion. In a clan of deceivers and manipulators, trust is a hard-earned treasure to be
cherished and guarded. Betrayal is punished with swift retribution, the souls of the treacherous
forever bound into the horrific limbo of the place known as Traitor’s Grove. Such fierce loyalty is
a small consolation, at least, given the dangerous but vital role the Scorpion have played in the
Empire from the moment their Kami spoke his fateful words:
“I will be your villain, Hantei.”

A thousand years ago, the Ki-Rin Clan rode out of Rokugan, seeking to discover
enemies hiding beyond the Emerald Empire’s borders. Their journey was arduous,
and they found many strange and powerful threats. In defeating each one, the clan
learned, changing its fighting styles, magical practices, and even philosophy. To
survive, it was forced to adapt—and overcome. After eight centuries of wandering, the Clan of the
Wind returned to the Empire as the Unicorn Clan. Their hordes entered Rokugan through the
Shadowlands, punching a hole through Crab defenses and making their way past the Kaiu Wall into
the heart of the Empire itself.
They wear fur, speak foreign tongues, and wield strange weapons. Although they still revere
the Kami Shinjo, they have drifted far from the traditions and ways of the Emerald Empire. Whereas
other clans beseech the elemental kami for their blessings, the Unicorn command the kami in a form
of sorcery known as meishōdō, or “name magic.” Shugenja of other clans see these practices as
barbaric at best or heretical at worst.
Of all those that left countless generations ago, only a few families have returned. The brave
Shinjo family leads the clan, claiming descendancy from the Kami herself. The Utaku follow, fierce
battle maidens and youths trained in acrobatic styles of horsemanship and war. The diplomatic Ide
have quickly relearned the dangers of the Emperor’s court, while the samurai of the Iuchi family
defend the clan with strange and powerful foreign magics. Lastly, the exotic, brooding Moto horde
joined the Ki-Rin Clan during its journeys and had never set foot in Rokugan until the clan returned
in the ninth century. All of the families care for the clan’s large herds of horses, which are the finest
in the world.

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 The Unicorn Clan may seem at first to be a series of yins and yangs: the patient Ide
countering the reckless Utaku; the airy, mystic Iuchi contrasting with the dark, dour Moto. Though
these disparate winds might blow in different directions, they all swirl around the clan’s heart, the
compassionate and courageous Shinjo family.
Yet the Unicorn Clan’s homecoming was not without difficulties. Even with proof of their
heritage, the Unicorn were greeted as barbarian invaders, not returning heroes. They charged past
the defenses of the Crab and then overcame the resistance mounted by the Lion, leaving both clans
scattered in the wake of Unicorn cavalry. Reintegrating into Imperial society has been a challenge—
and a deadly one at that. Still, there are lights in the darkness. An ancient treaty with the Crane was
honored, providing the Unicorn a strong ally within the Empire. The Phoenix watch Unicorn magic
with equal parts interest and concern. The Dragon perceive the wisdom of Shinjo’s children, and
the Scorpion see the advantage in a pliable ally. Yet, all of Rokugan marvels at the speed and might
of their magnificent steeds. Perhaps they are, finally, where they belong.

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Bushidō the warrior’s code which governs the life of a samurai. It specifies what is honorable and
not honorable, as well as the ways that Samurai should act in any situation. It is made up of
seven tenants: Compassion, Courage, Courtesy, Honor, Honesty, Loyalty, and Sincerity.

chop a personal seal or stamp used for signing documents, usually instead of a signature. The image
left behind by the seal is also referred to as a chop.

dōjō a school for instruction and study. Usually brings to mind a martial education, but can apply
to any school, such as the Kakita Artisan Academy.

heimin commoners or the common folk. These peasants make up the laborer and merchant classes,
doing work that is considered below the dignity of samurai. The heimin are usually attached to
the lands of their lords, and their lives are only as valuable as their lord determines.

rōnin a samurai with no lord. Often an outcast. Literally translates as “wave-man.”

sensei Teacher. Used as an honorific when referring to a teacher, master, or respected elder.

Note: This glossary is very much a rough work in progress, with a lot more work left to do on it.

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Edward Bolme is a writer on the Legend of the Five Rings Story Team. He returned as writer for
the Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game under the management of Fantasy Flight.
(Source). He has also worked as a producer at AEG, as well as on games for Wizards of the
Coast (Dune, Rage, Star Trek Dice, Doomtown, L5R), Interactive Imagination (Magi-
Nation), TimeStream (Battle TAGS), BioWare (Dragon Age) and Press Pass (Fullmetal
Alchemist, 24 TCG). (Source)

Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic
fields for material. She most recently misapplied her professors’ hard work to the short novel
Driftwood and Turning Darkness Into Light, a sequel to the Hugo Award-nominated
Victorian adventure series The Memoirs of Lady Trent. The first book of that series, A
Natural History of Dragons, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Her other works
include the Doppelganger duology, the urban fantasy Wilders series, the Onyx Court
historical fantasies, the Varekai novellas, and nearly sixty short stories, as well as the New
Worlds series of worldbuilding guides. Together with Alyc Helms as M.A. Carrick, she is
the author of the upcoming Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy, beginning with The Mask of
Mirrors in January 2021. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter
@swan_tower, or her Patreon. (Source)

Robert Denton III lives in the New River Valley of Virginia with his wife and three cats. In addition
to authoring The Sword and the Spirits, he has written over sixty short fictions for the Legend
of the Five Rings universe and has contributed to several roleplaying books for the fourth
edition of the Legend of the Five Rings Role-playing Game, including Secrets of the Empire
and Imperial Histories 2. Robert has also written for other roleplaying games such as Tiny
Frontiers and its expansion Mecha and Monsters, and he is currently the Creative Lead for
Radiant: Offline Battle Arena. You can visit him on Twitter: @ohnospooky. (Source)

Lisa Farrell is part of the FFG Story Team. She is an English/Irish freelance writer based in the
UK, who studied English at York University and Creative Writing at the University of East
Anglia. (Source, 2, 3)

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Josiah “Duke” Harrist became part of the FFG Story Team in 2019. He graduated from Wheaton
College in 2009. Persistent writer. Formerly Anglican; Presently Mennonite. Grew up in
Indonesia and Laos, worked as an English Teacher in Laos and Mongolia, proud resident of
Colorado. His personal page can be found at http://www.josiahduke.com/. (Source)

Keith Ryan Kappel is a former United States Navy Space Command intelligence specialist, a
freelance writer for the Fantasy Flight Games' line of Star Wars roleplaying games, as well
as the founder, editor, and writer of FandomComics.com. He also was a play tester for the
Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Roleplaying Game line. While acting as the editor and writer
of FandomComics.com between 2005-2012, Kappel made Star Wars fancomics and RPG
material. He is a member of the Story Team, and published his first official L5R fiction in
June of 2020. (Source)

D.G. Laderoute has a long history with L5R. He played his first game of the CCG in 1997, and
since then, has become ever more deeply involved in the Emerald Empire. He wrote
extensively for the 4th Edition of the RPG, contributing chapters to almost every supplement.
He now writes for the new version of the RPG coming from FFG, and also writes fiction for
the new FFG version of the setting. Laderoute has two novels in print (as of 2018), both
young-adult fantasies. One of these, entitled “Out of Time”, was short-listed for a Prix
Aurora Award, Canada’s premier award for speculative fiction, and is now being made into
an audio book. You can follow D.G. Laderoute on his author’s Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/dgladeroute and see more of his writing on Wattpad at
https://www.wattpad.com/user/dgladeroute. (Source)

Chris Longhurst is a freelance English writer and editor, who began writing for the L5R story team
in July 2018. (Source)

Daniel Lovat Clark is an author and game designer in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. He lives with a
daughter, a dog, two cats, and a wife who may technically qualify as a third cat. He smells
amazing and probably shouldn't be allowed to write his own bio. Dan grew up spending his
summers on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, which is where most of the photographs
that adorn this site were taken. Stateside, Dan has recently been forced to conclude that he
is a Minnesotan, as he has now lived in the Land of Ten Thousand (Generously-Defined)
Lakes even longer than he lived in the Green Mountain State. Dan got a degree from the
Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, and learned most of what he actually
knows working at Fantasy Flight Games in Roseville, Minnesota. (Source)

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Mari Murdock is a freelance writer, editor, educator, and gamer, specializing in gaming and
academia. She is probably best known for her work on Legend of the Five Rings, having
written the Scorpion Clan novella Whispers of Shadow and Steel and other L5R fiction for
Fantasy Flight Games and Alderac Entertainment Group. She has also had a smattering of
fiction and gaming content published by Gallant Knight Games, Outland Entertainment,
Green Ronin Publishing, and Heads & Tails Publishing, with essays published by Criterion
and Locutorium. Mari has an MA in Literature from BYU and a BA from BYU-Hawaii in
English, minoring in Creative Writing and Japanese. As a student, she served as the editor-
in-chief of Kula Manu, the university’s literary publication in 2012. After graduation, she
also acted as a staff advisor to the university’s Gamer’s Club and TeSPA chapter for four
years. She now works in the gaming industry, writing fiction and gaming content, and
teaches university students, helping them improve their own writing skills. Besides freelance
and teaching, her current project SpellCheck RPG, an online role-playing game streaming
show with other local writers in Utah. Mari has a special place in her heart for projects
involving monsters, both sinister and benign, and loves finding inspiration from mythology
and folk traditions. When she is not knee-deep in projects, Mari can be found reading old
sci-fi pulp novels, finding treasure in antique shops, and cooking Japanese food from what’s
left over from her grandmother’s pantry. She currently lives in Salt Lake City with her
husband Scott. To learn more about her educational background and to view her curriculum
vitae, click here. (Source)

Katrina Ostrander is the Story Manager at Fantasy Flight Games, where she is responsible for the
development of FFG’s proprietary IPs including Android, Arkham Horror, Legend of the
Five Rings, Runebound, and others. In addition to her work as a world-builder and continuity
editor, she has edited and developed over a dozen roleplaying game supplements and tie-in
novellas. She blogs about writing, roleplaying, and gamemastering at her blog,
triplecrit.com, and tweets about the same at @lindevi. (Source)

Tyler Parrott is the lead developer of the Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game under Fantasy
Flight Games, and a member of the story team. He published his first fiction, “A Discerning
Eye and an Unyielding Resolve” in June of 2020. (Source)

Nancy M. Sauer was a member of the Legend of the Five Rings Story Team for AEG from 2006–
2014, and returned to write for the L5R: The Card Game under FFG. (Source)

Gareth-Michael Skarka is an e-book author and game designer who founded Adamant
Entertainment and has worked primarily on e-published role-playing games. He is a member
of the Story Team, and published his first official fiction in November 2017. (Source)

Ree Soesbee is a writer, game designer, and lore editor for massively multiplayer online games as
well as traditional pen and paper RPGs. She has authored more than sixteen novels in a wide
variety of fantastic worlds ranging from the popular Legend of the Five Rings setting to Star
Trek, Dragonlance, Deadlands, and Vampire: the Masquerade. Her body of work includes
over a hundred RPG texts, and inclusion in numerous short story anthologies and
professional literary journals. Currently, she is a Narrative Designer for Guild Wars 2,
innovative follow-up to the award-winning Guild Wars MMORPG. Already, Guild Wars 2
has received Gamescom’s “Best Online Game” and MMORPG.com’s “Most Anticipated
MMO” awards.

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Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda is a writer and game designer who’s been doing both since the
wayback era of 2004. She’s worked in many different genres—horror, sci-fi, fantasy, post-
apocalyptic, high school drama—and stubbornly refuses to reveal her favorite one (although
it’s probably not teen drama). Her work has been a part of Destiny, Guild Wars 2, Dead
State, and most recently, Astroneer. Her full-time job is as a content designer at System Era,
part-time work at DoubleBear Productions (founded by her spouse in 2009), and freelance
fun-times with Fantasy Flight Games. She lives in Seattle with her talented husband Brian
and their weird cat Chuck. (Source)

She graduated from Macalester College in 2003 with a BA in English Literature, with a focus
on genre fiction (specifically sci-fi and fantasy, which she is still kind of amazed that anyone
let her do). After moving out to Irvine, California, she clawed her way into the gaming
industry a year later as a "business writer" for a small indie company, and quickly worked
her way into every department that didn't have a good lock on the door: helping with sound
design, testing systems, and eventually writing all the dialogue. In 2008, she moved up to
Seattle, and helped found the indie game company DoubleBear, as well as working at
ArenaNet and Bungie. From 2014-2018 she went indie full-time, helping ship Dead State
(and its "Reanimated" update) and leading the PANIC at Multiverse High! team, as well as
doing occasional table-top and collectible card game work for Fantasy Flight Games. In 2018
she joined System Era, shipping the sandbox exploration game Astroneer, and in 2019 she
rejoined ArenaNet, as well as founding the Tiamat Collective. Annie deeply enjoys
collaborating with teams of all sizes on projects of all scopes, from small indie to AAA, and
has experience in nearly every area of game design. She has a great deal of experience in
multiple styles and varieties of writing - cutscenes, branching dialogue, bulk fiction, item
descriptions, etc - and in scripting for voice actors. She takes pride in encouraging her
teammates, bringing virtual worlds to life, and telling really geeky jokes. (Source)

Websites: https://www.tiamatcollective.com/ and https://murderblonde.wordpress.com/

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