On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Fifty-Three: Requiem of the Ghost Fish

          The grand palace flooded, not just with the tears of Clan Mongonai, but with the tears of the nation as a whole. What remained of their ruling family swam the halls as Ghost Fish, swaying the tapestries, tearing the flags of Hikarishi with phantom teeth or claws. War was coming. His father and Khasan would be the first to greet it. And as for his family, for his mother and sisters? Well... they'd fled as far north as possible. There was nowhere left to flee, and nowhere left to hide.

Arata squeezed his sisters tighter, met his mother's empty eyes. No tears left to cry. Ueno's absence allowed them to breathe.

"We will burn our dead today," declared a man whose tears he didn't believe. "My brother and his devoted wife wanted to be reunited with their poor daughter as soon as possible. We will burn them without delay, and their souls may be at rest."

Gentle words spoken with malicious intent. The very souls he spoke of cried out in alarm. Mariko confirmed it. Mariko-

Mariko didn't catch his hand in time.

Gasps from the crowd. Ice and rage from Timur Mongonai. Arata stepped forward and stood alone.

"Khasan," he croaked, but his voice strengthened with time. "He needs to see her. He loved her more than anyone. He needs to say goodbye."

Silence reigned in Khasan's absence for a long moment. Timur usurped it with a hiss. "He loved her as a spindly weed loves the blossom it strangles to survive! If he loved her, he would be-"

"Here." The scrape of tomb's stone on marble, the gentle thudding of boots upon the floor. The weight of a hand on his shoulder. "I may never have coveted my position, Lord Timur, but as a prince-"

Arata's gaze snatched to the corpses lying in their solemn row. King, thought the boy, gulping at the sight. Miikhaan. But Khasan couldn't see them. Ice sealed Khasan's eyes.

"As a prince who loves his country, duty compelled me to leave Shimizu to defend Yukimura and our border. I'd thought you might realize now that none of us are safe."

"I have realized it," said Timur, leaning just enough to-

"Khasan..." murmured Arata. "Khas-" He reached for him but his hand grasped only shadow.

"No." Faster. Faster. Peering over his father's shoulder, then pushing the old man aside. Khasan collapsed in front of his cousin. He tried to take her hands but they wouldn't budge. "Yuaa? Yuaa! Please... please... Yuaa?"

"Don't say her name. Khasan." His father, come from whatever hole Khasan had crawled out of. Sanna tried to run to him but her mother caught her, held her close.

"Pa-"

"We can't call her that anymore. We must-"

"Get off!"

"Khasan!"

"GET OFF ME!"

Wilted petals drifted to the floor in time with Khasan's sobs, so many of them that Arata half-wondered if the corpse was producing them. If this was all some kind of dark and twisted magic like that of the creature haunting his sister. But they dropped at once with his final howl. Eventually, even it faded and let Kirai's song take its place.

"You did this."

Noboru blinked, but Khasan's gaze pierced his own father.

"You did this."

"Khasan."

Tears glistened in his brown eyes. They held none of Yuaa's light. They never had. "What did you say to him?"