CHAPTER 26: THE SPIRIT

The Ryuhon finawu were gracious and careful, taking the time to listen to each grieving villager and lead them through the appropriate prayers and rituals. Some even agreed to stay, taking up residence in the old temple that had been Kumono Academy. But their noble efforts hadn’t put all the spirits to rest.

Misaki saw Mamoru when she slept. Sometimes she was the Ranganese soldier who had killed him—thrilling like a maniac in the high of combat—only sobering when she found her son bleeding before her and the pain cleaved her in two.

Sometimes he stood in one of the compound’s hallways or in the dojo, seemingly close enough to touch, but somehow out of reach. Another time, she relived the fight in the darkened hallway. She stabbed the soldier through the chest, only to find Siradenyaa buried to the hilt in the center of the Matsuda crest. She slid the blade free and it wasn’t the Ranganese boy but Mamoru who fell to the floor at her feet, eyes wide in betrayal. She wanted to hold him, patch his bleeding heart, comfort him, but she couldn’t. She could only stand there as the blood seeped in between her toes. She could only watch him go.

One night, the dream did allow her to move. She tried to staunch the blood from his wound, only to pull it from his body, killing him. She woke to screaming that time, but it wasn’t hers. When her eyes snapped open, she found Nagasa thrashing on the blankets beside her, his back arched, small heels beating against the dojo floor with bruising force. Hiroshi was already gripping his shoulders, trying to shake him awake.

“It’s a nightmare, Naga-kun. Wake up!”

“Nii-san! Nii-san!” Nagasa whined, but when his eyes opened, he looked surprised to see Hiroshi above him. “Nii-san?”

“I’m here, Naga-kun,” Hiroshi said.

“No. Where is...?” Nagasa’s wide eyes flicked around, searching the dark, as Misaki put a soothing hand on his head. “Where is Nii-san? Where is Mamoru?”

“He’s not here, Naga-kun.” Misaki stroked his hair and found his bangs damp with sweat. “He’s gone.”

“No, no!” Nagasa’s small voice rose in anger. “He was here!”

“No, little one. No.” She gathered her third son to her chest, still petting his hair. “It was just a dream.”

She would have worried about waking the others, but Nagasa wasn’t the only one crying. There were so many nightmares in the dojo that one crying child barely made a ripple. Misaki did her best to soothe Nagasa, but her soft words masked a deep dread and sorrow. The fact that not one but two of them were seeing Mamoru so vividly was a sure sign that there was a ghost in the compound. Some part of Mamoru was still here, bound to the Duna, suffering and dangerous.

Setsuko was coping the best of any of the Matsudas. Every day, when the work had wound down, she carried little Ayumi to the mass grave.

“See that?” she would say, bouncing her daughter on her hip. “Your father lies here. Your father was a hero, Ayumi. Never forget that. Your father was a hero, so we’re going to be strong for him, ne? We’re going to make his spirit proud.”

The stout woman was the only person who seemed to have drawn strength from the tragedy. She seemed to have decided that she was going to get back at the Ranganese by living with a vengeance. A lesser woman might have lamented no longer having a man to look after her or resented Misaki for taking her place as the head lady of the Matsuda house. But far from sulking or eyeing Misaki with envy, Setsuko positively leaped with energy, asking “What can I do to help? What do you need me to do?” With Ayumi on her back, she carried as much as any of the men.

The only people who worked as enthusiastically as Setsuko were, surprisingly, the Kwangs. Misaki had expected the father and son to leave the village as soon as they could arrange it. The info-com towers may have saved the village, but they were destroyed now, and she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to linger at the site of such trauma.

But the city boy and his father threw themselves into rebuilding the village as if it were their own. Kwang Tae-min assisted the numuwu in disassembling the broken info-com towers so the metal could be repurposed to build new houses while Chul-hee volunteered himself for the building efforts. The northern boy had barely spent two seasons on Mount Takayubi, but the time had transformed him. His soft limbs had filled out with muscle from months of sword training with Yukino Dai and Mamoru. He may never have achieved the combat prowess to be of any use against the Ranganese, but his newly forged strength made him invaluable in rebuilding in the wake of the attack.

He ended up spending most of his time helping Hyori build a new home with the help of Atsushi. She was one of the few women left behind with no resident or visiting male relatives to help her rebuild. Her sister and parents had lived in the western village. They had been killed in the first moments of the attack, their houses ripped right off the side of the mountain before anyone had a chance to defend themselves. Neither her husband nor her younger brother had returned from the battle, and her little son had been killed right in front of her eyes. She had no one left to care for her in her grief.

Misaki and Setsuko did their best to visit her often. And in the meantime, Chul-hee and Atsushi did an admirable job trying to keep her in good spirits. The boys pointed out to her that the foundations of the Yukino compound were still usable, but they respected her wishes not to live in the place where her son had died and started erecting a shack for her near the Matsuda compound, where Misaki and Setsuko could more easily look after her.

One day, she appeared while Setsuko and Misaki were picking through the ruined part of the Matsuda compound with splinter-pricked fingers, trying to determine which pieces of wood could be repurposed and which were beyond use.

“Hyori,” Misaki said in surprise. “Is something wrong?”

“Misaki...” Hyori’s hand was over her stomach.

Sensing that Hyori wanted her closer, Misaki clambered down from the wreckage and went to her.

“What is it?”

“I...” Hyori’s hand crunched in the front of her kimono, shaking. “Misaki... I’m pregnant.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know who to tell. I...”

“Are you sure?” Misaki asked. It had only been four weeks, but jijaka women could almost always tell.

“Wait. You’re pregnant?” Setsuko exclaimed, bustling over to them.

“Y-yes,” Hyori murmured, shrinking in on herself.

“That’s wonderful news!” Setsuko beamed. “It means Dai still has a child! You’ll still have part of him. What a happy day!”

But there was no happiness on Hyori’s face when her eyes met Misaki’s, only horror.

Setsuko ran off to tell the neighbors, and Misaki had to ask, even though the look on Hyori’s face made her fear the worst. “Is it Dai’s?”

“I don’t know,” Hyori said in a hopeless whisper. “The timing... There is no way to know.”

“Oh, Hyori-chan.” She reached out for her friend’s hands, but Hyori pulled away. Horrified, Misaki watched the little hope Hyori had accumulated over the past weeks evaporate.

“I should have died,” she said.

“Don’t say that!” Misaki exclaimed. “You said there was no way to tell. It might be Dai’s baby—”

“And then what?” Hyori demanded. “Then what? Even if it is his, how am I supposed to care for a child? I’m disgraced, I have nothing, no husband—”

“We’ll take care of you,” Misaki promised, “me and Setsuko.”

“How?”

Hyori had a point. Aside from a few standing walls and one very detached man, the Matsuda house didn’t have many more resources than she did.

“I’ll make it happen,” Misaki said stubbornly. “I’ll make sure you and this child are taken care of. I swear it.”

Hyori was shaking her head. “I should have died.”

“Stop saying that!” Misaki begged. “Hyori, please!”

But the thought seemed to have taken root deep inside Hyori, and nothing Misaki or anyone else said could shake it out.

“It would have been better if I had died,” she kept saying in the same empty voice. “I think when that soldier came into our house, he was supposed to kill us both. I was supposed to die.”

“Don’t say such things, Yukino-san!” the neighbors and volunteers kept saying. “You must live. You are carrying your husband’s child.”

That particular attempt at comfort usually prompted a fit of moaning and hair clutching so unnerving that everyone stepped back from Hyori and decided to give her space. They didn’t realize they were twisting the knives deeper.

Four weeks after the attack, there were enough ramshackle shelters that people started moving out of the Matsuda compound. Misaki should have felt relieved to know that the residents of the village at least had the beginnings of new homes. And she had always liked her space; it should have been nice to see the wounded numuwu, crying women, and shouting children filtering out of her home.

“Feels a little lonely, doesn’t it?” Setsuko said after she and Misaki had helped the Kotetsus pack up and bid them farewell.

“Yes,” Misaki murmured. That was the word. Lonely.

“For a while there, it reminded me of home—of my parents’ shack,” Setsuko said. “Twelve of us all squeezed into the same two rooms to sleep. That was the worst thing when I moved here... all the quiet, empty space. Guess I couldn’t understand why you would need so much space for just a few family members.”

“Right.” Misaki remembered those first days after Setsuko had moved in. Setsuko had stuck to her like glue, insisting that she talk and smile. It hadn’t occurred to her that Setsuko might have been reaching out for something too. “On the bright side, a good piece of the house is gone now.”

A good piece of the family was gone too.

When the halls had been filled with the temporarily homeless people of Takayubi, nursing injuries, giving each other comfort, and sleeping on folded blankets, there was no room for the memories. The emptiness left the house open to too many memories, where Ryota always liked to chase around with Nagasa, where Takashi had liked to lounge after his evening drink, where Mamoru had gotten ready for school, studied with Chul-hee, played with his brothers...

The nightmares got worse.

Misaki was dismayed when one day, she came back to the compound to find the bedroom she had shared with Takeru before the attack empty. On the floor of the dojo, among many shocked and grieving people, it was not out of place for one to mutter in her sleep or wake up shouting. She didn’t want Takeru to hear that. She didn’t want to sleep beside him at all.

She was still standing in the bedroom doorway, gripping the doorframe when she felt the touch of Takeru’s nyama on the back of her neck.

“Misaki,” he said and his tone of voice suggested that he had already repeated himself several times.

“Sorry—” she turned from the bedroom doorway to face her husband. “What is it?”

“I found something in the wreckage.”

“Oh?”

Takeru took a step forward and Misaki fought the urge to step back. When Mamoru was born, she had hated the way his nyama reminded her of his father. Now she hated the way Takeru’s nyama reminded her of Mamoru. She didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t want him anywhere near her.

“What is this?” he asked, holding up Siradenyaa.

“That...” Misaki said, looking at the weapon, “is mine.”

Lying had barely crossed her mind. There had been a time when she had feared her husband’s disapproval, times she even thought he might hurt her, but after seeing him bow to a man who had stolen and burned his son’s body, she couldn’t seem to take him as seriously. What did she have to fear from a coward with no soul and no spine?

“A friend of mine had it made for me at Daybreak Academy,” she explained, brazenly disregarding her husband’s rule about talking about her past. “I hid it under the kitchen floorboards after we got married. It’s funny; I thought I would never need it. I thought surely Matsuda Takeru, the greatest swordsman in Shirojima, would be powerful enough to protect his own family without his wife taking up arms. I guess I was wrong.”

Takeru opted to ignore the blatant insult. Wordlessly, he extended a hand and dropped Siradenyaa. Misaki’s hand shot out possessively and caught the weapon before it could fall to the floor, automatically assuming her favored reverse grip, perfect for attacking an opponent standing close in an enclosed space like a hallway.

“Hiroshi said he recognized that blade. He said he used it to kill a man in black.”

“He did,” Misaki said. Why bother lying—why bother watching her words at all—if her husband clearly didn’t care. “Nice thing about that blade is that she isn’t just light; she’s got a razor-sharp edge that makes cuts easy for an undersized woman or, as it turns out, a small boy.”

“You should never have allowed something like that to happen,” Takeru said stiffly. “He is too young.”

Misaki was so indignant that she could only stare at him.

“You should have ensured that the children stayed hidden,” he said. “Your job as a woman is not to fight—”

“And what about your job?” Misaki found herself demanding. “What about your responsibility to keep this family safe?”

“My orders were to protect you, Setsuko, and the children—”

“I protected Setsuko and the children.” Misaki felt her face twist into a snarl of rage. “Five people were here in the house with me when the Ranganese broke down the doors, and all of them are with us now.” Her snarl turned predatory and she felt the need for blood in her teeth. “One of our sons was with you. Just one. And where is he now?”

“Misaki—”

“Where is he now, Matsuda Takeru?” she demanded savagely. “Where is he now?”

Predator’s eyes searched his expression, mad with hunger. She hadn’t just insulted him now; she had bitten into the rawest nerve she could find. There had to be anger there. There had to be something.

He just stared at her flatly, completely emotionless. “I don’t need you speaking to me that way,” he said. “Pull yourself together.”

Misaki’s fists clenched, a new army of insults crowding to the tip of her tongue, but she stopped at the sound of bare feet padding across the floor.

Hiroshi round the corner into the hallway. “Kaa-chan?”

The boy stopped, staring up at his parents. Expressionless, he looked from Takeru, to Misaki, to the black sword clutched in his mother’s hand. If seeing the weapon he had used to cut into another human had any effect on him, it didn’t show on his face. He did, however, seem to realize that he had intruded on a sensitive conversation between his parents because he dropped to his knees.

“Sorry, Tou-sama, Kaa-chan.” He bowed with the poise of a grown swordsman. “The baby is awake.”

“Tell Setsuko to deal with it,” Takeru said disinterestedly.

“No,” Misaki said before Hiroshi could move to obey. “It’s alright. I’ll take care of it.”

“We’re not done here.” Takeru took a step toward Misaki, as if to back her into the bedroom, trapping her.

Misaki brought Siradenyaa up between them in a reverse grip, handle first. Takeru’s chest hit the blunt butt of the Zilazen glass sword and he stopped. Misaki met his eyes in challenge. At the moment, her position wasn’t aggressive—barely even defensive—but that could change with the smallest flip of the blade. Another fraction of a step forward would force Misaki to either give ground or turn her wrist and cut him. It was his gamble.

He didn’t move.

That’s what I thought, a vicious part of Misaki growled.

“I think we are done.”

Lowering Siradenyaa, she strode past her immobile husband, past a very confused Hiroshi, and out of the hall.

Izumo was squirming in his cradle—well it wasn’t really a cradle but a bureau drawer padded with spare clothing. Misaki had given his old cradle to a woman with a much younger infant whose home had been destroyed.

“Hey there, little one.” She patted Izumo’s stomach but she couldn’t pick him up with Siradenyaa in her hand. “I’ll be right with you.”

Reaching behind the drawer cradle, she pulled Siradenyaa’s flowered sheath from its latest hiding place. A quick swipe of her jiya cleaned the dried fonyaka blood from the blade. Having sheathed Siradenyaa, she hid the weapon again and knelt to pick up Izumo.

“Yosh, yosh,” she soothed, rocking him.

The baby’s arms moved as he cried, swiping aimlessly at his own face. As Misaki watched, a few tears jumped from his cheeks, drawn to his tiny fingers by the pull of his jiya. The salty droplets tumbled through open air, twinkling, for a moment, before falling to the tatami.

Mamoru and Hiroshi had also been moving tiny amounts of water by the time they started to teethe; Nagasa around the time he started to walk. Unlike the three before him, Izumo did not seem to grow colder as he grew stronger. He didn’t scald like a little tajaka, but his modest human warmth was like that of the few adyn children Misaki had held.

It wasn’t just Izumo’s body temperature that was pleasant. Misaki had come to love the feel of his nyama—not hard but fluid, never grating against her coldness, but swirling about it until slowly, they melted together and both became liquid. He brought back a long gone feeling of being adaptable, fluid, and free.

Misaki let the feel of her fourth son at her breast calm her, ease the anger.

She had planned to spend the rest of the day helping Takeru and Setsuko continue the grueling work of cleaning up the wrecked part of the Matsuda compound, but when she contemplated the prospect of seeing Takeru again, she found that she couldn’t face it. Instead, she bundled Izumo into a cloth sling against her chest and slipped out of the compound to visit Hyori.

Visits to Hyori’s little hut were hardly joyful experiences, but her friend needed companionship. And at this moment, Misaki felt like she would be ready to walk into Hell itself so long as Takeru would not be there.

Hyori greeted her with her usual politeness, inviting Misaki into the cold, cramped space, and apologizing that she didn’t have any food to offer—as if any of them had food.

“Sorry about the cold,” she said. “The boys are still helping me with the insulation.”

“I live with Matsudas,” Misaki said, “I’m used to the cold.”

“I’m worried,” Hyori admitted once they were kneeling together on the tatami.

“Why?”

“This baby... it doesn’t feel like Ryota did inside me.”

“Well, none of my boys quite felt the same as one another,” Misaki said. “Hiroshi was so much colder than the others—”

“It doesn’t feel like a jijaka.”

Misaki paused. “It’s barely been long enough for you to tell that you’re pregnant at all, Hyori-chan. I’m sure it’s too early to tell something like that.”

“Maybe...” Hyori’s hand rested on her waist, her thumb rubbing nervously back and forth across her obi.

With all the heart-twisting chaos of Misaki’s own life, she still found it sobering to consider what Hyori was facing. If the baby was her husband’s, life would be difficult. Without any family to support her, she would have to work to support the child—a daunting prospect for a noble girl raised to be a housewife. And it wasn’t as if there were an abundance of employment options in Takayubi.

If the child was not Dai’s, everything would be so much worse. Misaki had spent a good portion of her sleepless nights, trying to figure out what could be done to help Hyori in that worst-case scenario. What could she do to make life easier for her friend? All her consideration had yielded little. Everyone would know what had happened. Hyori would live the rest of her life bearing shame that wasn’t hers to bear. And the child... Misaki shuddered to think how these people would treat the child, but she couldn’t show her apprehension. Hyori hardly needed Misaki to add to her stress.

“I’m sure everything will be fine.” Misaki did her best to project reassurance she didn’t feel. What she did feel was anger. A pressing, seething abundance of anger. It swelled in her chest, causing a flare of pain that made her grimace.

“Are you alright, Misaki?” Hyori asked, shuffling over on her knees to put a hand on Misaki’s back.

“I’m fine,” Misaki said, clutching her chest.

“Your lungs are still bothering you,” Hyori said. “I know there isn’t a lot of money right now, but maybe several us could pool our funds and try to get you to a city hospital for an x-ray. At the very least, we should try to get an expert here to examine—”

“Nami’s wrath, Hyori, are you honestly worrying about me?”

“Of course,” Hyori said.

“You’re so good Hyori...” She couldn’t find comfort in Hyori’s touch. Instead, she saw the Ranganese soldier on top of her friend, holding her down, and she felt hatred. “You’re so good. No man should be allowed to diminish that. No man.”

“Misaki, you’re not making any sense—”

“Listen, Hyori-chan.” Misaki gripped Hyori’s arm. “Maybe it is your husband’s child. Maybe it’s not. That doesn’t matter.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because the child doesn’t belong to its father!” Misaki burst out, surprised by the rage in her voice. “Who says that children belong to their fathers? We carry them, we nourish them inside us, we bring them into the world, we do all the work in raising them. Then these men—these men think they can just take them and kill them?”

“Misaki...”

“What claim does that Ranganese bastard have to a child from your womb? What right do any of them have? As much as Ryota was Dai’s, he was yours. As much as Mamoru was Takeru’s, he was mine. He was mine!”

A slamming pain made Misaki look down and realize she had punched the tatami, breaking the bamboo reeds and cracking the wood floor beneath. In his sling, Izumo started crying.

“Sorry.” Misaki put a hand to her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Hyori-chan. I’m not helping. I… I should go.” She bowed. “I’ll replace the tatami and boards. Give Chul-hee and Atsushi my apologies.”

“Misaki...” Hyori was looking at her friend in a mixture of concern and fear, but no intervening emotion seemed to be able to drive the deep sorrow from her eyes. Misaki couldn’t bear to look at it any longer.

“I’m so sorry.” She bowed one last time and fled the hut.

After leaving Hyori, Misaki wandered. Under the pretense of checking on the neighbors, she made her way throughout the entire village. She visited Katakouri Mayumi and her crippled father, Hisato, who had just finished putting the roof on their makeshift house, the Mizumaki women who had almost finished theirs, and the Ginkawa volunteers who were just starting work on a shack to house the several children orphaned in the attack.

The Ameno men gathered near the beginnings of the orphanage greeted her and bowed, but she decided not to bother them when she noted that they appeared to be at their wits’ end trying to ration supplies for distribution. From the way they struggled with the numbers, it sounded like they could have benefited from Takeru’s help, but he had been barely involved in the larger rebuilding efforts since returning from his little trip up the mountain. He would correct numbers, but he didn’t take an active role in any of the planning, leaving coordination to Kotetsu Katashi, who was still recovering from the loss of his leg, and Kwang Tae-min, who still struggled to communicate with the Kusanagi natives.

Not wanting to think about Takeru anymore, Misaki forcibly inserted herself into the conversation between Kotetsu and Kwang about plans to construct more lasting dwellings in the coming months, despite understanding next to nothing about carpentry or village planning. By the time the sun had set and lights started going out, Misaki was out of people to visit and there was only one place left to go... back to the house, to the bedroom. To Takeru.

The compound was dark when she crept in. Izumo, who had long since fallen asleep in his sling, went into his drawer without much fuss. In the dark, Misaki found four other sleeping pulses—Hiroshi, Nagasa, little Ayumi, and Setsuko. The woman had taken to sleeping in the same room as the children since the house had emptied. She no longer had a husband to sleep beside, and Misaki supposed it must comfort her to sleep among her family, as she had when she herself was a child.

Setsuko stirred as Misaki straightened up from the drawer.

“Hey, pretty girl,” she mumbled—a funny thing to say in the dark—“You’re back late.” She sounded exhausted, but in the satisfied, happy sort of way that came from a day of hard work.

“I know,” Misaki whispered, wishing more than anything that she could join Setsuko on the floor and share in her content. “I’m sorry. Please, go back to sleep.”

For a moment, she entertained the idea that it might be alright for her to curl up here with her sister-in-law and children, and sleep soundly, surrounded by love. But that was out of the question. A woman who slept outside the main bedroom was one who had been rejected. And Takeru had not rejected Misaki. Not yet.

Stepping back from Izumo’s drawer, she left the room of soft breaths and sweet heartbeats. Even in the dead of winter, the room where Takeru slept was always a few degrees colder than the others. Most powerful theonites, including Takeru’s own brother, had powerful pulses that Misaki could sense from bounds away. Takeru’s heartbeat was as faint as it was steady. His breath barely moved the air. If not for the skin-crawling cold he exuded, Misaki would not have been able to tell that her husband was there, asleep on their futon. She was thankful that the Gods had graced her with the stealth of a snake. She slid under the blankets beside Takeru without disturbing him.

She dreamed of the day she sparred with Mamoru in the dojo. Only the weapons in their hands weren’t bokken. Mamoru held his beautiful serpent sword. Misaki held Shadow’s Daughter.

“Careful,” Misaki said, dimly aware that sparring with such weapons was not safe. “I don’t want to damage your sword.”

“I’m sure it will be alright,” Mamoru said in a reassuring voice that somehow made Misaki’s dread grow. “Mamoriken is strong.”

“Mamoriken...?” Misaki repeated slowly. “That’s not... your sword doesn’t have a name.” Not yet, a faraway part of her screamed. Nami please, not yet. Let this moment stay. Let me stay here with him.

“Of course, it does. It’s the Protector.”

“No...”

“Isn’t that what you told me to do?” Mamoru said. “Protect the people who are important to me, no matter the cost?”

“I didn’t say that.” I never said no matter the cost. I never—

“But you named me, didn’t you?” Mamoru said. “When I was born?”

“No!”

“You knew this is what I was when I was still in your womb. Before I was born, I was already—”

“No!” In her distress, Misaki lashed out, forgetting that Siradenyaa was still clutched in her hand. Glass hit flesh. She and Mamoru both looked down to find a gaping sword wound in his side. She had killed him.

“Kaa-chan...” Mamoru wasn’t angry when he looked into her face. Worse. He looked bemused. “Why?” he asked in a voice full of hurt. “Why?”

Misaki’s eyes snapped open and she sat up—only to find Mamoru standing at the foot of the futon. Oh, Nami—

“You shouldn’t have left me,” he said accusingly, and now he was angry. “Why would you leave me alone out there?”

Misaki wanted to speak, but she seemed to be frozen from the inside, rigid, like all the times she had held herself beneath her husband, trying not to recoil. Could it be that, after so long lying still against this futon, she had forgotten how to move altogether? Even for her son?

“Why are you doing this?” Mamoru demanded, his nyama rising, freezing cold like his father’s. “Why are you keeping me here? Why are you doing this to me?”

I didn’t mean to, Misaki tried to say as Mamoru’s frigid jiya crawled up the walls, forming spikes of ice. I’m sorry! My son, I’m so sorry! But no sound would come out of her open mouth.

Flesh peeled from his neck and face, crackling as it burned away. He had been dead and still when his physical body burned, but not this Mamoru. This Mamoru screamed.

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?”

Ice shot toward Misaki, sizzling with Hellfire—

She jerked awake. This time it was real—real sweat clinging to her skin, real tears on her face, and a terribly real ice spike pressed against her stomach, not quite hard enough to break the skin. Breaking the spike with her jiya, she sat up and looked around her in horror. She had heard of sleep-forming before, the phenomenon in which a jijaka dreamed so vividly that their jiya activated, but it had never happened to her before. Her sleeping jiya had raised ice all along the walls of the room, forming long spikes that pointed inward toward the futon.

A ragged breath beside her drew her attention to her husband. Takeru was up on his knees, eyes wide in the moonlight, and he was—oh Nami!—he was bleeding! One spike seemed to have pierced his right arm while another had clipped his side. He was holding a hand to the side of his neck. When he lowered the hand, it was covered in blood.

Misaki knew with heart-dropping certainty that she had done this. In sleep, her jiya had risen against Takeru, as it had once risen against his unborn offspring inside her. And he was bleeding from the neck. The poison in her had grown out of control.

Takeru looked at the red on his hand, then at Misaki. His eyes were no longer emotionless. They were wild as he growled, “Get out.”

“Takeru-sama, I—”

“Get out!” he roared.

And Misaki was on her feet, scrambling backward out of the room. She didn’t stop running until she had reached the front deck, as far from the bedroom as she could go without leaving the compound. Part of her wanted to keep running, through the rocks and snow in her bare feet, down into the ocean, where she could drown in the arms of the Gods. But she was shaking violently and her legs gave out beneath her.

Alone on the deck in the biting winter air, she curled into a ball. One hand fisted hard in her own hair, the other curling into her middle, sinking into the flesh of her stomach.

How had this all gone so wrong? Fifteen years ago, she had turned her back on Carytha, to go to her future in Takayubi. It was supposed to be the right decision—for her family, herself, her country—so why had it all turned into this?

She had thought she was water that could adjust to fill any container, be as strong in the shape of a mother as a warrior, but in the end, maybe Koli had been right about her. She was a knife, a sharp edge, that killed or cut anything it touched. The babies she hadn’t killed in her womb had been born into a world of blades that cut them down before they had a chance to grow. Now the evil in her had risen out of her sleep and turned its wrath on her husband.

Part of her expected Takeru to come after her and punish her, maybe—finally—kill her. A growing part of her prayed to feel the Moon Spire or the Whispering Blade against the back of her neck. She had raised her jiya against him twice now. He was well within his rights to take his revenge, so why not? It would be so easy for him. One stroke. It was all she deserved.

Instead, the touch on the back of her neck was gentle.

“Misaki?” Setsuko’s voice—a tender, familiar sound, offering reassurance that Misaki did not deserve and never had. “Sister, what happened?”

Misaki shrank from the touch. She had never deserved it.

“You shouldn’t come near me, Setsuko,” she said, her voice strangely clear through the tears—as if it was coming from someone else’s mouth. “Something is wrong with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you still see him, Setsuko?”

“What?”

“Your husband. Does he haunt you?”

Setsuko shook her head. “I know who I married, and I know how lucky I am to have married him. A marriage like ours is something I never would have thought to hope for all those years ago at the fish market when I made eyes at the pretty nobleman from up the mountain. I’m a simple country girl who never expected to marry well or marry for love, so when I did both, I guess I understood that every moment of it was a gift. Takashi, this life, this place, is all something I never expected to have. He died fighting. That was who he was. I’ll miss him, but I suppose... it’s enough that I ever had him at all.”

“A handful of pearls,” Misaki murmured.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing... You’re a remarkable woman.”

“Nah.” Setsuko shrugged. “I’m just too dumb to overcomplicate things.”

Misaki tried to chuckle like she used to at Setsuko’s jokes. The smile wouldn’t come.

“I know who I married,” Setsuko said again, more seriously. “There was an itch in him. Age, boredom, rust, he’d use different words for it. It’s hard to believe my man could fear anything, but I think he feared growing old in this house without ever fulfilling his potential. The way he went… I think that was a kinder end for him than that slow rust. He wanted to mean something.”

“And sticking around to be a husband to you and a father to Ayumi?” Misaki couldn’t help but ask. “That wasn’t enough meaning for him?”

“You know what he was like,” Setsuko said with a fond smile. “So dramatic. It wasn’t enough for him to love us. He had to show it in the biggest, most ridiculous way possible.”

“But it wasn’t just you he left,” Misaki said. “He left this whole family—this whole village—with no leader when he sent Takeru back. Isn’t that a bit selfish?”

“No,” Setsuko said stubbornly. “It wasn’t. Not just selfishness, anyway. It was trust.”

“What?”

“You never heard him talk about Takeru behind closed doors. He believed in his little brother, more than he ever believed in himself.”

Then he was even more delusional than I thought. Takeru still had not emerged from the house to retrieve her. What kind of leader couldn’t even control his own wife?

“My husband knew exactly what he was doing when he died,” Setsuko said resolutely. Then she paused, pressing her lips together. “I think… Mamoru-kun had some of that same magic in him. I know he was too young, but you said yourself that he died with purpose. Shouldn’t his spirit be alright?”

“It’s me. It’s my fault he can’t move on.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m angry, Setsuko,” Misaki breathed. “I know it’s not right, but I’m just... I’m angry all the time. It’s eating me alive.”

“Then you have to do something about it,” Setsuko said in a resolute way that made it sound simple.

“I know,” Misaki said miserably. “I just... I don’t know what—or how.”

“Well... do you know what’s making you so upset?” Setsuko asked. “Are you angry with the Ranganese?”

“No, no.” Bizarrely, Misaki hadn’t given the Ranganese much thought since the attack.

“Are you angry with Takashi?” she asked more gently. “For sending Takeru back to us instead of Mamoru? It’s alright if you say yes.”

“No,” Misaki said honestly. It didn’t make sense, but she wasn’t angry at Takashi.

“Then who?”

“I don’t know,” Misaki said, clutching her head. “I don’t know.” But that wasn’t true.

“Well, once you figure it out, maybe you should confront the person—or spirit—or whoever it is. Cleanse your anger.”

“Maybe...”

“I bet that after that, you’ll be able to rest, and so will Mamoru.”

Misaki nodded. Setsuko’s advice may have been simple, but it was sound. If Misaki didn’t do something with this anger, it was going to kill her. Mamoru would never be at peace and their family would be poisoned forever. Any warrior knew that death by slow poisoning was worse than death by the blade.

After Setsuko had gone back to bed, Misaki took a brushpen and a sheaf of kayiri from Takashi’s old study. Lighting a lantern, she knelt on the floor and started writing.